After advertising crisis, YouTube sets hurdle for ads on new profiles

Following the scandal surrounding the appearance of brand advertising next to extremist YouTube videos, the first drastic change has been made to the business model. In future, advertising will only be displayed on Google video platform channels once their videos have been viewed 10,000 times. According to a blog post, this gives the internet company the opportunity to first determine whether the profile operators are adhering to the rules.

Around five years ago, YouTube allowed all users to immediately place advertisements in front of their videos. This became an attractive cornerstone of the business model. However, it also caused problems because some people tried to make a quick buck with third-party content. Google fought against this with its "Content ID" software, which can automatically identify videos. Now the channel operators are to be additionally checked after reaching the 10,000 views mark.

Google recently found itself disproportionately pilloried in the debate about the unfortunate placement of advertising videos. Only a "tiny" proportion of ads were affected, Google manager Philipp Schindler told the tech blog "Recode". As a first step, YouTube gave advertisers more control over where their ads are shown. In addition, there are now more categories of videos next to which ads are generally not displayed.

According to a report in the London Times, the problem attracted a great deal of attention. Among others, the BBC, the American telecom companies Verizon and AT&T, the consumer goods giant Johnson & Johnson, Ford and the bank JP Morgan Chase announced that they would suspend their ads on YouTube. Google explained that some brands had not carried out their threat, while others had returned. In Switzerland, the issue was taken up by "10 vor 10", which also prompted Swiss companies to review their advertising activity on YouTube (Advertising week reported). (SDA/red.)