Google has just launched its Political Advertising Transparency Report, which allows you to find out the patterns of political ads on its platform: who hired them, estimate how much they invested and find out how long that propaganda was shown and in what areas of the country.

In this sense, and as a consequence of making expenses transparent -and being a tool for the National Electoral Chamber and citizens- Google has just launched its Political Advertising Transparency Report on its platform.

As explained by the company, to appear in the indicator, which is available in the country after the Brazilian experience (it has had it since 2018), anyone who makes political ads must be registered; otherwise, the campaign will be unsubscribed. At the same time, Google added another tool: labels that indicate who paid for each ad. Thus, the ads covered by this policy must include the label “Paid for by” which, for most formats, will be generated automatically with the information provided in the verification process. The owner will not appear, but the organization will. The data, upon request, may be consulted by the National Electoral Chamber.

To register with Google, the requirement contemplates the request for a name and email address, Unique Tax Identification Code (CUIT), official address (it must be an address in Argentina), proof of organization and a declaration of whether the advertiser is a national political party or coalition.

Although this year is electoral, this process will be of continuous application, they explained in the company. Likewise, they maintained that other “policies” also apply, such as those that prohibit content with statements that are demonstrably false and that could significantly undermine participation or trust in an electoral or democratic process. For example, misrepresented information about public voting procedures; eligibility of political candidates based on age or place of birth; electoral results or census participation that contradict official government records; incorrect statements indicating that a public figure was killed or had an accident.

Ads that appear on search, YouTube, the Display Network and on Display and Video 360, with political motives (even if it is announced media information) must be registered by a person in charge so that citizens can know who is paying for what propaganda. It may be from an organization or an individual. From that, in a panel available with data that already appears since September 7 of last year, it is possible to know who are the ones who spent the most money on Google, for how long, in which places they were segmented, among other things. At the close of this note, the parties have spent 116,280,000 pesos on schedule.

Today, it is already available in the member countries of the European Union, India, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Israel, Australia, Taiwan, the US, Brazil and, now, Argentina.

A dynamic similar to that of Meta

In 2018, Facebook (now Meta) began a similar policy amid serious accusations for its role in the 2016 United States presidential election, which ended with the victory of Donald Trump. In Argentina, the first experience of transparency was for the 2019 elections.