During India's Lok Sabha election year, Google ramped up its efforts to ensure fair and transparent advertising practices, taking decisive action against a significant number of ad accounts and implementing stricter policies. As part of its commitment to safeguarding the integrity of the electoral process, Google cracked down on 2.9 million ad accounts registered in India. This initiative was part of a broader global effort that saw the suspension of over 39.2 million advertiser accounts worldwide, marking a nearly 200% increase from the 12.7 million accounts suspended in 2023.

In 2024, Google removed 247.4 million ads in India for violating its policies. These policies address various issues, including financial services, trademark infringements, abuse of the ad network, personalized ads, and gambling/games. Globally, Google blocked or removed a total of 5.1 billion ads and restricted 9.1 billion ads in 2024. Additionally, the company took action on 1.3 billion publisher pages, blocking or restricting ads, and implemented site-level enforcement on over 220,000 publisher sites.

Google's efforts also included verifying approximately 8,900 new election advertisers in the past year. The verification process involves confirming that the advertiser is based in the country where they registered their account and verifying the advertiser's identity. In regions where election ad verification is required, all election ads must include a disclosure that identifies who paid for the ad. Google automatically generates a "Paid for by" disclosure for most ad formats using the information provided during verification.

Recognizing the rise of AI-generated public figure impersonation scams, Google assembled a team of over 100 experts to develop countermeasures. The company updated its misrepresentation policy to suspend advertisers promoting these scams, leading to the permanent suspension of over 700,000 ad accounts. This action resulted in a 90% drop in such scam ad reports last year. Google also took down over 10.7 million election ads globally from unverified advertisers in 2024, a 46% increase from 2023.

Google's policies require that all election ads include a "paid for by" disclosure and are included in a publicly available transparency report. The company introduced disclosure requirements for AI-generated content in election ads in 2023. Advertisers running India Election Ads must submit a valid pre-certificate issued by the Election Commission of India (ECI) for each ad.

Google's actions reflect a commitment to supporting responsible political advertising and ensuring that all political ads and destinations comply with local legal requirements, including campaign and election laws and mandated election "silence periods." The company has different requirements for political and election advertising based on region and restricts ads considered legally problematic or culturally insensitive.