Google, in turn, announced changes on Thursday to comply with new European rules and give users more transparency in ad targeting and content moderation.
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This new EU legislation, which is second to none in the world – called DSA (Digital Services Act) – will apply to the 19 largest social networks, marketplaces and search engines in Europe from Friday, including Google and its video platform YouTube, but also Amazon, Facebook and Instagram , X (ex-Twitter) or TikTok are subject to heavy fines.
These giants are now subject to stricter obligations around reporting and taking down illegal content, fighting misinformation, protecting minors, and targeting advertisements. TikTok and Meta (Facebook, Instagram) recently announced changes to accommodate the new rules.
Google on Thursday pledged to provide more information about how ad targeting works and give researchers access to more data in its Ad Transparency Center.
The measures were announced in a blog post by Laurie Richardson, Google’s vice president of trust and security, and Jennifer Flannery O’Connor, YouTube’s vice president of product management.
The two officials also said that Google will release more information about its content moderation management and will expand this commitment to other of its services, including Maps, Play, Search and Shopping.
Compliance with the DSA rules is checked by independent audits under the supervision of the European Commission. Any violation will result in fines of up to 6% of worldwide sales. The biggest threat: repeat offenders could be banned.