<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right click-to-enlarge"><div><div class="image on-image"><a title_source="Google+ / Philipp Schindler" title_caption="Philipp Schindler" class="zoomin" href="https://static-ssl.businessinsider.com/image/55d1f1ae2acae7c7018c0949-960/screen shot 2014-08-08 at 10.57.45 am.png"><span class="sprites click-to-enlarge-icon" title="Click to enlarge"></span></a><p class="source"><span>Google+ / Philipp Schindler</span></p><p class="caption">Philipp Schindler</p></div><p></p></div></div>As the dust settles on <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-new-operating-structure-2015-8">Google's big news about the launch of a new parent company called Alphabet</a>, additional information about the revamped corporate structure keeps trickling out.</p><p>For instance, Philipp Schindler, Google's VP of global sales and operations, will in many ways be replacing <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-chief-business-officer-omid-kordestani-benched-2015-8">departed chief business officer Omid Kordestani</a>, which <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/meet-googles-new-money-man-philipp-schindler">The Information's Amir Efrati reported Sunday evening</a>.</p><p>Although we understand that Schindler won't actually be getting the CBO title, he'll now be an SVP on the management team of Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and will have a lot of the responsibilities that a chief business officer would have. </p><p>There is no one person holding the CBO role, at least for now, and Schindler will be joined on Pichai's new management by Daniel Alegre, who runs global partnerships, and Lorraine Twohill, who runs marketing.</p><p>All three execs had been <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/Google-Sales-Leaders-Vie-for-Top-Post?token=926ca304653edc0e86125d6c2f500bc0">pinned as internal candidates</a> gunning for the chief business officer job after Kordestani "temporarily" inherited <span>the position <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/omid-kordestani-the-google-executive-in-charge-of-business-2014-7">when Nikesh Arora left the company last summer</a>. </span></p><h2><strong>Schindler was almost made CBO last year</strong></h2><p><span>A former Google exec recently told us that Arora actually wanted Schindler to be his replacement, but that Page tapped Kordestani instead. </span></p><p><span>Although </span><span>Kordestani's appointment was billed as a short-term gig at first, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-q3-earnings-2014-10">Google announced last fall</a> that he would be staying in his role on a more permanent basis. </span></p><p><span>However, with the Alphabet reorg, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-chief-business-officer-omid-kordestani-benched-2015-8">he stepped down</a> to follow Larry Page to Alphabet. Kordestani has long been one of <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/omid-kordestani-leaving-google-then-coming-back-2015-5">Page's most trusted confidants</a>, and he will continue to act as an advisor to Alphabet.</span></p><p><span>"I decided that it was time to eliminate my own job" and step aside "so that the excellent leaders on my management team can sit on Sundar Pichai's management team," <a href="https://plus.google.com/+OmidKordestani1/posts/N43GYTT19vy">Koredestani posted on Google+ when he decided to leave Google</a>. </span></p><p>Schindler, a ten-year Google vet, will now have "one of the most lucrative non-CEO jobs in the Internet industry, worth tens of millions of dollars a year, depending on share price performance," as Efrati puts it. </p><p>Before getting this title upgrade, he was already running the operations teams across all of Google's advertising and enterprise (Google for Work) products. Before joining Google in 2005, Philipp was AOL Germany's SVP, in charge of its marketing and sales. </p><p>Efrati's sources describe Schindler as "hyper-logical" and "softer-edged" than Arora.</p><p>But the former exec we spoke with says that he sometimes came across as a "control freak who thinks that he isn't one." For example, he might intend to give one of his reports more autonomy on a project, but then end up wanting to check every part of it. </p><p>Schindler has pushed to simplify Google's advertising products and integrate as much automation as possible, <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/meet-googles-new-money-man-philipp-schindler">Efrati reports</a>, which will likely still be his position as he gains more control on the company's direction.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-read-receipts-texting-etiquette-apple-2015-7">Stop making the biggest mistake when it comes to texting etiquette</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="U5eDFkdjp7f9evTl8u2fWmV19kBCwmNA" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Meet the exec who just inherited Google's massive sales division

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Google announced that it will be turning to machine learning to help it identify objectionable content, which caused over <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/these-brands-pulled-ads-from-youtube-and-google-over-extremist-content-2017-3">250 brands to freeze their ad spend with YouTube and Google display</a>.</p><p>In a statement provided to Business Insider, Google said the new tools will "help enforce our revised policies and identify content that may be objectionable to advertisers."</p><p>Google said it would also be offering brand safety reporting by working with third party partners, like Integral Ad Science and comScore.</p><p>A Google spokesperson said: "We are working with companies that are MRC-accredited for ad verification on this initiative and will begin integrating these technologies shortly."</p><p>The company also said it would make it easier for advertisers to manage where their ads appear by reducing the review time for flagged videos, exclude specific content from where their ads could appear, and change the default level of brand safety for where ads can appear.</p><p>In an <a href="https://www.recode.net/2017/4/3/15157654/google-youtube-advertising-controversy-interview-philipp-schindler">interview with Recode</a> Google chief business officer Philipp Schindler said only "very very very small numbers" of ads were running alongside objectionable content.</p><p>"And over the last few weeks, someone has decided to put a bit more of a spotlight on the problem," Schindler said in the interview.</p><p>Using the new machine learning tool, Schindler said Google was able to find five times more videos that weren't brand-safe than before.</p><p>WPP-owned media buying agency GroupM announced last week that it is building its own tool to buy brand-safe ads. Omnicom Media Group, which manages media buying for AT&amp;T, Procter &amp; Gamble, and PepsiCo, <a href="http://adage.com/article/digital/ad-giant-omnicom-carving-safe-area-brands-youtube/308517/">made a similar announcement on Saturday</a>.</p><p>The announcement from Google follows a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-announces-tougher-policies-hiring-brand-ads-extremist-content-2017-3">similar one made late March</a> in response to the advertiser boycott.</p><p class="tagline">Get the latest Google stock price<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/stock/GOOG-Quote"> here.</a></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/navy-seal-explains-end-shower-cold-water-2017-3">A Navy SEAL explains why you should end a shower with cold water</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="NxM2JjYTE6LZAnIjQtPRewfCdzJWb2O1" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Google will use artificial intelligence to identify objectionable content and sell 'brand-safe' ads

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Alphabet's biggest revenue stream is set to be hit hard by the coronavirus, with digital advertising already dropping off.</li><li>Key analysts predict that the effects could be felt throughout the year, with one predicting Google's first year-over-year decline in ad revenue.</li></ul><ul class="summary-list"><li>It would be a more significant drop than the company experienced during the last financial crisis.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories</a>.</li></ul><p>As startups get battered by the economic shockwaves of the coronavirus, tech giants like Facebook and Google are in a stronger position thanks to large cash reserves and surging demand for their services by quarantined consumers.</p><p>But it will be far from smooth sailing, with spending on digital advertising - the primary business for Google and Facebook - set to take a big hit. Facebook <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-facebook-ad-business-hurt-pandemic-usage-grows-2020-3">has acknowledged</a> that its ad business is feeling the impact, while Twitter has completely withdrawn its financial forecast.</p><p>And Google, the world's dominant search engine, has significant vulnerabilities that could erode its topline and even cause it to shrink - something that has never happened in the company's twenty year history.</p><p>"We've cut our Google revenue and earnings numbers three times in the last three weeks, and we now think Google will face its first ever year-over-year decline in ad revenue in the June quarter," RBC Capital analyst Mark Mahaney told Business Insider. "We have them down 5% year over year, for the first time ever."</p><p>Although Google's self-service ad platform provides marketers with a huge return-on-investment - which should allow it to fare better than smaller, competing online ad platforms like Twitter or Snap - analysts believe it is already seeing a reduction in advertising from the drop-off in global travel.</p><p>"They get about 10%-15% of their revenue from the travel and hospitality vertical." Mahaney told Insider. "We estimate that Booking Holdings generates about 3% of Google's ad revenue. So if you throw in Expedia, the airlines and hotels themselves, rental cars, cruise ships etc, that's probably 10-15%."</p><p>RBC's Mahaney now projects that Google parent company Alphabet's Q2 revenue will be roughly $37 billion, compared to $39 billion in the same three-month period of 2019.</p><h2>An Olympic sized revenue hole?</h2><p>Meanwhile, the cancellation or postponement of major events such as the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, a global brand advertising bonanza, mean that Google will miss out on major ad opportunities this year. Financial firm Cowen estimates that Google and Facebook combined could lose more than $44 billion in ad revenue this year.</p><p>In his latest note on the company, MCH analyst Brian White recalled the 2008-2009 downturn which plummeted Google's growth from 42% in Q1 2008 to just 3% in Q2 2009. That was a significant slowdown, but it wasn't an actual revenue decline.</p><p>"Given this new economic reality, we believe it will be difficult for digital advertising spending to escape the impact of the COVID-19 crisis," White wrote.</p><p>Despite the loss of the Olympics, some analysts think Google may still be able to lean on big brand advertisers for support.</p><p>Daniel Salmon, an analyst at BMO Capital Markets, reckons that Google's "higher exposure to larger enterprises versus small businesses" could give it better protection than Facebook in the coming months. In a research note on Monday, Salmon points to efforts by Google Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler to push "broader enterprise sales engagement" through ad partnerships with bigger companies like Disney.</p><p>And Google's cloud computing business is likely to benefit from the ongoing trend of large corporations and federal agencies shifting their computing resources to remote data centers. That's a potential win for cloud services operated by the likes of Google, Amazon and Microsoft. </p><p>YouTube, the video streaming site owned by Google, represents another important service that should see a boost in usage from the quarantines and stay-at-home orders throughout the world. Whether all that usage translates to a revenue benefit or a growing cost for Google is unclear however.</p><p>"I think advertisers are pulling back from YouTube like every other channel, but I'm sure consumers are binging on YouTube," said RBC's Mahaney. "So I think they're seeing more usage across their properties, just less monetization."</p><p class="tagline"><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/intelligence/brand-investment-esports?IR=T&amp;itm_source=businessinsider&amp;itm_medium=ctgr_bii&amp;itm_term=ctgr_leadgen&amp;itm_content=advertising&amp;itm_campaign=brand-investment-esports"></a></p>

Google's revenue is on track to shrink for the first time ever because of the coronavirus, according to one of the internet industry's top analysts

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Google has responded to the major advertiser boycott of YouTube, after brands found their ads appearing next to hateful and extremist videos, with a plan to introduce "tougher" ad policies, increased controls for marketers, and a hiring spree to increase its capacity to review offensive content.</p><p>The announcement, <a href="https://blog.google/topics/ads/expanded-safeguards-for-advertisers/">made in a blog post on Tuesday by Google's chief business officer Philipp Schindler</a>, comes on the same day <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/global-brands-shun-google-p9zlr7bq7?shareToken=6a42db1821827a01c64a58bb797c2870">The Times reported more than 250 companies - including global brands such as HSBC, McDonald's, Toyota and Heinz - have suspended their spending with the video ad platform</a>. Last week, it appeared the issue was just affecting UK spend, but this report suggests it has now become a global concern.</p><p><a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/big-brands-fund-terror-knnxfgb98">The Times' initial investigation into brand safety on YouTube in February</a>, which uncovered brand ads funding videos posted by hate preachers and supporters of terrorist groups, thrust the issue into the spotlight. Content creators are paid on YouTube through an ad revenue share scheme.</p><p>In the blog post published Tuesday, Schindler said "Recently, we had a number of cases where brands' ads appeared on content that was not aligned with their values. For this, we deeply apologize. We know that this is unacceptable to the advertisers and agencies who put their trust in us. That's why we've been conducting an extensive review of our <keyword id="35666" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="advertising">advertising</keyword> policies and tools, and why we made <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-responds-to-youtube-ad-boycott-we-can-do-a-better-job-2017-3">a public commitment last week</a> to put in place changes that would give brands more control over where their ads appear."</p><h2>What Google is announcing</h2><p>From Tuesday, Google says it will take a "tougher stance" on hateful, offensive, and derogatory content. That will include removing ads "more effectively" from content that is "attacking or harassing people based on their race, religion, gender or similar categories." Google is also looking at ways to block impersonators of legitimate content creators from collecting ad revenue from the YouTube Partner program. </p><p>"Finally, we won't stop at taking down ads. The YouTube team is taking a hard look at our existing community guidelines to determine what content is allowed on the platform-not just what content can be monetized," the blog post said.</p><p>Google also said "in the coming days and months" it will introduce more tools for advertisers to be able to control where their ads appear across YouTube and other third-party sites that are monetized through Google's advertising platforms.</p><p>Those updates will include a change of the default settings on the existing tools so they meet "a higher level of brand safety," more account-level controls so it is easier for advertisers to exclude specific sites or channels from their AdWords for Video and Google Display Network campaigns, and "more fine-tuned controls" for brands to choose where they want their ads to appear. Another update due "in the coming months" is the expansion of video-level reporting for all advertisers so they can have more transparency about where their ads ran.</p><p>Google also says it plans to staff up in this area.</p><p>"We'll be hiring significant numbers of people and developing new tools powered by our latest advancements in AI and machine learning to increase our capacity to review questionable content for advertising," the blog post said.</p><p>Schindler signed off the blog post by saying that Google believes the new updates will "significantly strengthen our ability to help advertisers reach audiences at scale, while respecting their values." The company has promised to act "swiftly" and "carefully," to ensure it does not harm the legitimate publishers and creators that use its services.</p><p>The blog post comes a day after Google's EMEA boss Matt Brittin apologized on stage at annual industry event Advertising Week Europe in London about the issue of ads appearing next to questionable content on its services. In a pre-briefing with journalists on Monday morning, <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/matt-brittin-on-how-google-plans-to-tackle-its-youtube-brand-safety-problem-2017-3">Brittin said the issue was affecting "pennies not pounds" of advertising spend.</a></p><p><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/google-meeting-government-youtube-extremist-video-ads-boycott-suspension-2017-3">Google has been summoned to appear in front of the UK government for the second time over the issue this week</a> to provide a timetable on the work it is doing to ensure ads for taxpayer-funded services do not appear next to inappropriate content. <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/taxpayers-fund-extremism-csdn0npsf">The Times found ads for the Home Office, Royal Navy, Royal Air Force, Transport for London, and the BBC on hate videos</a> as part of its investigation.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/pivotal-analyst-brian-wieser-downgraded-google-after-youtube-advertiser-boycott-in-the-uk-2017-3">Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser downgraded Google's stock</a> from "buy" to "hold" on Monday, following the advertiser boycott and a recent rise in the company's share price.</p><p>"Although spending by advertisers who have announced their intention to suspend spending on YouTube and other Google properties is relatively small so far, we think that awareness of the incident will marginally curtail global growth this year vs. prior expectations, leading us to reduce our price target on Alphabet slightly, to $950 vs. $970 previously," Wieser wrote in a research note.</p><p class="tagline">Get the latest Google stock price<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/stock/GOOG-Quote"> here.</a></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/navy-seal-explains-end-shower-cold-water-2017-3">A Navy SEAL explains why you should end a shower with cold water</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="NxM2JjYTE6LZAnIjQtPRewfCdzJWb2O1" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

Google announces 'tougher' policies and hiring spree to prevent brand ads appearing next to extremist content

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Dado Ruvic/Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">McDonald's and AT&amp;T are among a handful of big brands pulling their ads from YouTube.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>Big brands like McDonald's, Nestlé and AT&amp;T pulled their ad spend this week with YouTube after they found ads running next to videos with inappropriate comments.</strong></li><li><strong>YouTube this week held an hour-long conference call between ad agencies with Philipp Schindler, Google's SVP and chief business officer, and YouTube's chief product officer Neal Mohan, to address the situation.</strong></li><li><strong>The news comes as YouTube recently decided to stop paying third parties to make sure ads run next to specific videos.</strong></li><li><strong>YouTube is still negotiating such contracts and agencies said the newest brand safety snafu could give them leverage to get YouTube to pay the brand safety tab.</strong></li><li><strong>According to data from MediaRadar, five of YouTube's biggest advertisers are spending 70% less on the platform than a year ago.</strong></li></ul><p>Another brand-safety crisis has hit YouTube, and this time advertisers think they could use it as leverage over the video platform.</p><p>On February 17, blogger Matt Watson <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O13G5A5w5P0">posted a 20-minute video</a> showing how YouTube videos featuring children included inappropriate comments that linked to pornography. By Wednesday, big brands like McDonald's, AT&amp;T and Nestlé that ran ads alongside the videos had pulled or paused their ad spend with YouTube.</p><p>While the videos only represent a sliver of advertisers' YouTube spend, the advertisers that pulled spend are some of the biggest advertisers on the platform and make up its core, according to analytics company MediaRadar. The episode also is the latest example of how brand-safety concerns continue to plague YouTube. </p><p>This week, Google set up an hour-long conference with holding companies and a handful of its executives including Philipp Schindler, SVP and chief business officer, and YouTube's chief product officer Neal Mohan to go over the steps that it has taken to protect minors on its platform, according to one holding company exec.</p><p>The brand-safety issue comes at a critical time as agencies and YouTube are negotiating 2019 contracts. Two weeks ago, Business Insider reported that YouTube recently notified holding companies that it would stop paying for third-party brand safety fees. Tech firms like OpenSlate and Pixability provide software that allows brands to make sure that their ads only appear on a vetted group of videos.</p><p><strong> </strong><em><strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-is-changing-brand-safety-for-marketers-2019-2">YouTube quietly stopped paying the bill for brand safety, and a battle with agencies could be escalating</a></em></p><p>"They've been communicating heavily every day - lots of detail [about] short-term, long-term plans," the exec said. "They spent a lot of time going through the actual step-by-step process."</p><p>During the call, YouTube execs told agencies that it has <a href="https://youtube-creators.googleblog.com/2018/02/preventing-harm-to-broader-youtube.html">shut down 400 channels </a>and removed comments on millions of videos. Execs also detailed some longer-term changes to the platform like comment-moderation software that allows creators to control comments and updates to a strike system that YouTube uses to determine if a creator can serve ads alongside their videos.</p><p>"<span>Any content including comments that endangers minors is abhorrent, and we have clear policies prohibiting this on YouTube," said a spokesperson for YouTube. "</span><span>We took immediate action by deleting accounts and channels, reporting illegal activity to authorities and disabling comments on tens of millions of videos that include minors. There's more to be done, and we continue to work to improve and catch abuse more quickly."</span></p><p>YouTube execs on the call also talked about the possibility of requiring videos creators to approve comments on their videos before the comments could be posted on YouTube. However, the massive number of videos that are uploaded to YouTube makes vetting videos and their comments resource-intense. The agency exec said that YouTube is encouraging creators to "police their own feed."</p><p>"If you think about the ratio of videos to comments, the order of magnitude of reviewing comments in a pre-screen mode is just too daunting," an agency exec said.</p><h2>YouTube's snafu represents a small amount of ads</h2><p>The snafu may not amount to a lot in terms of <keyword id="35666" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="advertising">advertising</keyword> dollars, but it has affected some of the largest spenders on the platform.</p><p>Only $8,000 in advertising was spent on the videos in question in the past two months, according to a knowledgable source.</p><p>The agency exec said a couple of its clients had only spent an average of $3 advertising on the videos in question since the beginning of January.</p><p>"It's very limited exposure. That doesn't change the concern about the content and the comments," the exec said. "The underlying issue is that these things aren't happening periodically. It's the nature of the beast."</p><p>MediaRadar crunched data for seven companies that have pulled their ads this week. They include YouTube's biggest advertisers: Disney, AT&amp;T, Epic Games, McDonald's, Nestlé, Clorox and Hasbro. The data tracks ad spend between January and February 17, when Watson posted the video.</p><p>Five of the seven companies spent up to 70% less on the platform versus a year ago, according to MediaRadar. Nestlé was the only one of the seven that pulled its spend during last year's issue, though the company came back two weeks later.</p><p>In other words, the impact of this episode on YouTube could be large if those brands' actions are any indication.</p><p>MediaRadar said that these advertisers typically buy ads on YouTube's homepage and on popular channels like The Ellen Show and WWE.</p><p>"It will be interesting to see how many of these advertisers truly discontinue their advertising with YouTube," said Todd Krizelman, CEO and co-founder of MediaRadar. "This is not YouTube's first brush with brand safety concerns, and in previous cases, the majority of advertisers returned to the platform within weeks of the breach."</p><h2>Agencies could gain leverage with YouTube</h2><p>For more than a year, YouTube reimbursed agencies who used third parties' brand safety protection in the form of refunds or credit. In December, YouTube notified agencies that it would stop picking up the bill in 2019.</p><p>Agency sources said YouTube believed it made significant progress in cleaning up its platform in the two years since brand-safety issues started getting a lot of marketers' attention. YouTube also added new ad-tech vendors like DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science to its platform in recent months and sources speculated that YouTube didn't want to look like it favored one vendor over another.</p><p>Deals are still being negotiated and the agency exec said advertisers could use the latest outcry over brand safety to get YouTube to pick up the brand safety cost again.</p><p>"Unfortunate events like this demonstrate the need for greater third party oversight - no question," the source said. "It's hard to imagine that this would not give us more leverage."</p><h2><strong>Not all brands are pulling spend </strong></h2><p>Not all brands are pulling away from YouTube. Burger King, Johnson &amp; Johnson, and Anheuser-Busch InBev told Business Insider they are sticking with the platform.</p><p>While brand safety is important to Burger King, it is satisfied with YouTube's efforts to tackle the issue, Burger King's CMO Fernando Machado told Business Insider.</p><p>YouTube<span> </span><a href="https://youtube.googleblog.com/2017/12/expanding-our-work-against-abuse-of-our.html">dedicated 10,000 employees across Google</a><span> to vet videos, rolled out tools that catch questionable content through artificial intelligence, and significantly raised the requirements for creators to make money from their videos.</span></p><p>"The most important part is that they seem to be committed to solving the problem," Machado said.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-model-x-perfect-safety-crash-test-rating-2019-2">Why Tesla's Model X was the first SUV to receive a perfect crash-test rating</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

YouTube is facing another brand-safety crisis, and agencies see it as an opportunity to get the video platform to pay the brand safety tab

<p>There are several internal candidates gunning for Google's top sales position since former Chief Business Officer <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nikesh-arora-leaving-google-2014-7" target="_blank">Nikesh Arora left</a> in July<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/nikesh-arora-leaving-google-2014-7" target="_blank">,</a> <a href="https://www.theinformation.com/Google-Sales-Leaders-Vie-for-Top-Post?token=926ca304653edc0e86125d6c2f500bc0" target="_blank">The Information's Amir Efrati reports</a>. </p>
<p>Company vet Omid Kordestani stepped up in the meantime, but his role <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/omid-kordestani-the-google-executive-in-charge-of-business-2014-7" target="_blank">will likely be only temporary</a>. </p>
<p>Here are five people that Efrati's sources highlighted as likely to get tagged for the sales exec position:</p>
<h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div>Philipp Schindler, Arora's right-hand man</h2>
<p>Schindler is Google's VP of global sales and operations, and Efrati reports that he had been Arora's right-hand man. </p>
<p>He's been at Google nearly ten years, and runs the operations teams across all of Google's monetization products. <span><br /></span></p>
<p>Before joining Google in 2005, Philipp was AOL Germany's SVP, in charge of its marketing and sales. </p>
<h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div>Margo Georgiadis, president of sales in the Americas</h2>
<p>Georgiadis has an interesting history with Google: She joined back in 2009 as its VP of global sales operations, left to be Groupon's COO in 2011, and then came <em>back</em> to Google after a mere five months. </p>
<p><span>She's now Google's president for the Americas.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">"I enjoyed working [at Groupon] and got a lot out of it," <a href="http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20121020/ISSUE09/121019744/googles-margo-georgiadis-on-leaving-groupon#" target="_blank">she told Crains in 2012</a><span>. "</span>I'm happy to be back at Google and for all the right reasons."</span></p>
<h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div>Matt Brittin, a rising star in sales</h2>
<p>Brittin joined Google in 2007, and is one of Arora's European proteges: He runs sales and operations as Google's VP of northern and central Europe.  </p>
<p>In the past, he's been responsible for <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/tax/9707121/Google-UK-boss-Matt-Brittin-fights-back-over-tax-payments.html" target="_blank">defending how little corporate tax </a>Google pays <span>in Europe. </span></p>
<p>Before joining Google, he was commercial director at the U.K. publishing company <a href="http://www.trinitymirror.com/" target="_blank">Trinity Mirror</a>. </p>
<h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div></h2>
<h2>Daniel Alegre, president of global partnerships</h2>
<p>As Google's president of global partnerships, Alegre helps the company develop relationship with publishers to sell ads, according to Efrati. </p>
<p>He joined Google back in 2004, and headed up sales in both the Asia Pacific region and Latin America, and ran its worldwide mobile efforts before snagging his current position in 2012. </p>
<h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image"></div><p></p></div></div>Lorraine Twohill, the "dark horse" candidate</h2>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Efrati's sources highlighted Twohill as a "dark horse" candidate. Twohill runs Google's marketing, and was just <a href="http://adage.com/article/digital/google-promotes-top-marketer-lorraine-twohill/293506/" target="_blank">awarded an "SVP" title</a> in June (there are only 10 people with the senior vice president rank total at Google). </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">Although she doesn't have sales experience, she's been with the company for 11 years, and could be a good candidate because she's extremely intelligent.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.5em;">"[Larry Page] thinks smart people who have range can handle a lot," one of Efrati's sources said of Twohill. </span></p>
<p>They're all the conventional prospects, one former Googler told Business Insider.</p>
<p>However, the fact that none of these internal candidates got the position as soon as it opened up and that Page called in Kordestani, could mean that Google isn't completely sold on any option and could be looking for external people. </p>

Meet The 5 People Gunning For Google's Head Sales Spot 

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>AT&amp;T and Verizon are pulling their ads from YouTube and other sites that run Google ads after it was revealed that some of their ads have appeared next to extremist videos on YouTube.</p><p>The move represents a significant escalation of a business problem for Google.  AT&amp;T and Verizon are among the world's largest brand advertisers, and their decisions to temporarily stop buying YouTube ads could cause other big US advertisers to follow suit.</p><p>"We are deeply concerned that our ads may have appeared alongside YouTube content promoting terrorism and hate," an AT&amp;T spokesperson told Business Insider in a written statement. "Until Google can ensure this won't happen again, we are removing our ads from Google's non-search platforms."</p><p>"Once we were notified that our ads were appearing on non-sanctioned websites, we took immediate action to suspend this type of ad placement and launched an investigation," a Verizon spokesperson told Business Insider. "We are working with all of our digital <keyword id="35666" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="advertising">advertising</keyword> partners to understand the weak links so we can prevent this from happening in the future."</p><p>The two companies will continue placing ads that show up next to Google search results.</p><p>Shares of Google were roughly flat in late trading on Wednesday.</p><p>Verizon and AT&amp;T are two of the largest US advertisers, and pulling spending from Google is a significant blow to the tech giant. The two companies are the latest to pull ads from Google following an <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/taxpayers-fund-extremism-csdn0npsf">investigation by The Times</a> that showed some UK government ads running alongside videos for extremist groups like ISIS, indirectly providing money to those groups.</p><p>Google's chief business officer Philipp Schindler promised in a <a href="https://blog.google/topics/ads/expanded-safeguards-for-advertisers/">blog post</a> this week to provide advertisers with more ways to control what content their ads appear against.</p> <p class="tagline">Get the latest Google stock price<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/stock/GOOG-Quote"> here.</a></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/hacker-explains-importance-password-managers-online-security-privacy-2017-3">A hacker reveals the most secure thing you can do to your passwords</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="o1eWNiYTE6ttbubCYfBwiA5wjRang_VP" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

AT&T and Verizon pull ads from Google over extremist videos

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>KFC</span></p><p class="caption">Meet the new KFC Colonel.</p></div><p></p></div></div>Good morning. Here's everything you need to know in the world of <keyword id="35666" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="advertising">advertising</keyword> today.</p><p><strong>1. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/kfc-brings-on-last-comic-standing-judge-norm-macdonald-as-its-new-colonel-2015-8">KFC has another new Colonel.</a></strong> "Saturday Night Live" veteran and "Last Comic Standing Judge" Norm Macdonald has taken over from impressionist Darrell Hammond.</p><p><strong>2. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-advertising-sdk-update-with-video-2015-8">Microsoft is definitely still in the advertising business, despite selling off large chunks of its advertising division to AOL.</a></strong> On Monday, the company released an update to its advertising tools that let developers put video commercials in their Windows Store apps.</p><p><strong>3. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/comedy-central-seamless-on-fat-jew-controversy-2015-8">Seamless and Comedy Central have dropped internet comedian The Fat Jew.</a></strong> But it's not because of the plagiarism controversy surrounding him.</p><p><strong>4. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/philipp-schindler-google-2015-8">Meet the exec who just inherited Google's massive sales division.</a></strong> Philipp Schindler, Google's VP of global sales, will be effectively replacing chief business officer Omid Kordestani.</p><p><strong>5. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-revamps-notes-to-be-your-next-blogging-platform-2015-8">Facebook is revamping its "Notes" section.</a></strong> It wants it to be your next blogging platform. </p><p><strong>6. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/japan-has-plans-to-put-advertisements-on-the-moon-2015-8">Japan has a plan to put ads on the moon.</a></strong> Sports drink Pocari Sweat will be left on a lunar plain.</p><p><strong>7. <a href="http://adage.com/article/agency-news/horizon-talks-hyundai-backed-agency-innocean/299870/">US independent ad agency Horizon has formed a joint venture with Hyundai-backed agency group Innocean.</a></strong> Together they are forming a standalone media agency called Canvas Worldwide, AdAge reports.</p><p><strong>8. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/gaps-plan-to-be-cool-again-2015-8">Gap isn't cool anymore.</a></strong> But it has a master plan to change that.</p><p><strong>9. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/this-fake-documentary-trolls-vice-2015-8">Jack Black, Bill Hader, and Fred Armisen parody Vice Media in a new faux documentary.</a></strong> The episode of their six-part IFC series "Documentary Now!" sees a Brooklyn-based news outlet called "Dronez" on the hunt for a Mexican drug kingpin.</p><p><strong>10. <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/23f93928-42c6-11e5-b98b-87c7270955cf.html#axzz3j9MsHOb7">BuzzFeed is creating a Japanese-language site, The Financial Times reports.</a></strong> The new site is a joint venture with Yahoo Japan.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-benefits-nyt-report-culture-retail-orders-shipping-2015-8">Maybe working at Amazon is hard for a reason</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="d4eG4ydzr2sR8Qz-S2fyywm5v_r2LOIM" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

The 10 things in advertising you need to know today

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Ada Health</span></p><p class="caption">The Ada Health team. From left to right: pediatrician Claire Novorol, Daniel Nathrath, and neuroscientist Martin Hirsch.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>Started by a pediatrician, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ada-health-calls-on-nhs-to-open-up-tender-process-after-deepmind-deal-2017-7">Ada Health</a> is a tool that lets you type in your symptoms and learn what's ailing you. </strong></li><li><strong>You can also track your symptoms over time and share them with a healthcare provider. </strong></li><li><strong>The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/investors-have-backed-an-ai-doctor-app-called-ada-with-47-million-2017-10">company is backed by</a> Google's chief business officer and the entrepreneur behind Amazon's Alexa.</strong></li></ul><p>To Google or not to Google - that's often the question when it comes to a troubling ailment like a cough or stomach pain.</p><p>But researching your symptoms online can send you down a rabbit hole that leads you to think you have a life-threatening condition. The alternative is a trip to the doctor, which can be time-consuming and expensive. Given the <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2018/05/04/news/economy/health-care-workers-shortage/index.html">shortage of healthcare providers</a> in the US, doctor's visits can often feel hurried and unpleasant as well.</p><p>Daniel Nathrath, the CEO of Berlin-based startup <a href="https://ada.com/">Ada Health</a>, and his co-founder and chief medical officer, Claire Novorol, have created a tool that they hope will address this problem.</p><p>The Ada Health app is designed to give better information than you'd get from Google results. Users open the free app, enter their age and gender, and type in a symptom like pain or a cough. Then a bot powered by machine learning asks several basic questions, such as how long the symptom has persisted, what makes it worse, and whether or not any related symptoms have popped up.</p><p>After a brief chat with the Ada bot, you're brought to a screen that displays what's probably causing your issues. The results are based on a large and growing database of hundreds of thousands of people that match your age and gender.</p><p>Nathrath and Novorol hope the tool can nip some health fears in the bud. It could also help people avoid unnecessary doctor's visits. There's no waiting room, no appointment, and no copay.</p><p>"This is what seeing your doctor should be like," Nathrath told Business Insider.</p><h2>Ada compares you against others in your demographic</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Shutterstock</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Say you're a 31-year-old woman experiencing stomach pain, for example. Once you type in your symptoms and answer Ada's questions, it might tell you that, based on the other 31-year-old women in the database, the vast majority who reported your symptoms were diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Then Ada may advise visiting a healthcare provider. Or if the likely cause of your symptoms is not a serious issue, the service may suggest that you rest and keep an eye on your symptoms.</p><p>"It's like a conversation with a physician," Nathrath said.</p><p>Ada reminds you throughout this process that it cannot diagnose or treat an illness. All it does is give you the statistical likelihood that you have a certain condition, based on the information in the database.</p><p>Still, Ada's results are more accurate than those of sites like WebMD, which merely tell you the most likely cause of a condition based on data from the entire population. </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Ada Health</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Ada is currently the highest ranked medical app in more than 130 countries. Roughly 45,000 cases are entered into the app's algorithm every day, and so far, roughly 6 million patients have interacted with Ada.</p><p>Nathrath believes Ada could eventually reduce healthcare spending by helping patients avoid unnecessary doctor's visits and saving their healthcare providers time. That's a possibility that needs to be tested with research, but investors seem to see the platform's potential.</p><p>Ada Health received funding from William Tunstall-Pedoe, the AI entrepreneur behind Amazon's Alexa, as well as Google's chief business officer Philipp Schindler. The company has raised $69.3 million since it was founded in 2011. At that time, it was aimed at helping doctors track patients' symptoms, but in 2016, the company <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/investors-have-backed-an-ai-doctor-app-called-ada-with-47-million-2017-10">pivoted to focus on patients</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/investors-have-backed-an-ai-doctor-app-called-ada-with-47-million-2017-10">launched as an app in Europe</a>. They expanded to the US last year.</p><p>"Essentially, what we've done is developed a medical AI that you may have an easier time talking to than to your family doctor," Nathrath said.</p><h2>Symptom checkers: The next popular primary care tool</h2><p>Ada Health is not the only tool that lets users input and track their symptoms. Another so-called "symptom checker" is <a href="https://www.khealth.ai/">primary-care app K Health</a>, which launched in New York in 2016 with funding from Box Group and Comcast Ventures.</p><p>If these services can get the <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> and AI right, they offer a big list of potential benefits, including reducing healthcare costs, saving time for patients and doctors, and slashing unnecessary worry. But it's too early to say how beneficial these tools really are for doctors or patients, since the data we have on symptom checkers is quickly becoming outdated.</p><p>For a study <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h3480">published in the journal BMJ</a> in 2015, researchers from Harvard Medical School reviewed 23 symptom checkers to see if they provided the correct assessment of users' symptoms and accurate recommendations. (Neither Ada nor K Health were included since neither existed at the time.) The researchers found that the checkers were correct just over a third of the time; and their advice was determined to be the proper advice for a given condition roughly two thirds of the time.</p><p>Importantly, however, the study did not compare those findings to statistics on human physicians.</p><p>Until better data becomes available on the utility of apps like Ada Health and K Health, they can at least offer an educated assessment about what's causing a symptom like a sore throat. Ada Health recently launched its service in two additional languages - Portuguese and Spanish - to make it accessible to even more users.</p><p>"Our biggest issue right now is serving the demand we have," Nathrath said. </p><p class="tagline"><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/intelligence/ai-in-us-healthcare?IR=T&amp;utm_source=businessinsider&amp;utm_medium=ctgr&amp;utm_term=ctgr_leadgen&amp;utm_content=dhealth_ctgr_leadgen&amp;utm_campaign=dhealth_ctgr_leadgen_ai_in_us_healthcare"></a></hr></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-prevent-most-common-emergency-room-injuries-2017-1">An ER doctor explains the most frequent injuries they see and how to prevent them</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

A startup has raised $69 million to eliminate the scary guesswork of Googling your symptoms - and its tool could help you avoid doctor's visits, too

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Justin Sullivan/Getty Images</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>A symptom-checking tool called <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/health-startup-alternative-to-googling-symptoms-2018-8">Ada Health</a> is launching a new partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.</strong></li><li><strong>On Wednesday, the startup will begin working with the Gates Foundation to study how the tool could support healthcare workers in rural parts of the world.</strong></li><li><strong>Ada Health is already one of the most popular medical apps in over 130 countries.</strong></li></ul><p>Getting to the doctor when you're not feeling well is no easy task no matter where you live. But in many parts of the world, there are bigger problems than high costs and long wait times.</p><p>For roughly <a href="http://pubdocs.worldbank.org/en/193371513169798347/2017-global-monitoring-report.pdf">half the globe's population</a>, basic healthcare is a luxury that's too expensive to get. So <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/health-startup-alternative-to-googling-symptoms-2018-8">Ada Health</a>, a tool that lets you type in your symptoms to learn what's causing them, is launching a new initiative with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to extend the reach of its services.</p><p>The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/health-startup-alternative-to-googling-symptoms-2018-8">Ada app</a> is designed to tell you what's causing your symptoms with more accurate results than you'd get from a Google search. Users open the app, enter their age and gender, and type in a symptom like pain or a cough. Then an AI-powered bot asks several questions, like what makes the symptom worse, and tells you the most likely culprit.</p><p>Starting today, Ada is working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to study how the platform can be used to support healthcare workers in rural parts of several countries in East and Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, South America, and India.</p><p>The project is part of Ada's new <a href="https://ada.com/global-health-initiative/">Global Health Initiative</a>, a series of projects focused on improving access to primary care in underserved populations across the world. The effort will involve work with local governments, NGOs and other partners as well. </p><p>"The reason we're doing this is the same reason why we started Ada in the first place: it's about giving people better access to quality healthcare," Daniel Nathrath, CEO and co-founder of Ada Health, told Business Insider. "While it's a noble goal to pursue it in the US or Germany, it's even more important in countries where so many people don't have access to a doctor."</p><p>Currently, the app is available in roughly 130 countries including Germany (where it started), the US, and Canada. Already, roughly a third of Ada's customers hail from countries outside of Germany, according to the company.</p><h2>To Google or not to Google</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Ada Health</span></p><p class="caption">The Ada Health team. From left to right: pediatrician Claire Novorol, Daniel Nathrath, and neuroscientist Martin Hirsch.</p></div><p></p></div></div>To Google or not to Google - that's often the question when it comes to an ailment like a cough or stomach pain.</p><p>But researching your symptoms online can send you down a rabbit hole that leads you to think you have a life-threatening condition. A trip to the doctor, n the other hand, can be time-consuming and expensive.</p><p>Nathrath and his co-founder, Claire Novorol, created Ada Health to give people a third option.</p><p>Unlike the results that come from sites like WebMD, Ada's results are based on a growing database of hundreds of thousands of people that match your age and gender. The idea is that by homing in on a population sample you fit into, Ada can give more accurate results.</p><p>Say you're a 31-year-old woman experiencing stomach pain, for example. Once you type in your symptoms and answer Ada's questions, it might tell you that most of the other 31-year-old women in the database who reported your symptoms were diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Then Ada may advise visiting a healthcare provider. Or if the likely cause of your symptoms is not a serious issue, Ada may suggest that you simply rest.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Ada Health</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Putting Ada into the hands of healthcare workers</h2><p>As part of the new partnership with the Gates Foundation, Ada researchers will look at the data the app gathers in several rural, low-income parts of the world to better understand patients' needs and learn how to improve healthcare delivery to these regions. </p><p>In the future, Nathrath said he hopes such insights could be used to do things like help stop a deadly outbreak.</p><p>Hila Azadzoy, Ada's managing director of the Global Health Initiative, told Business Insider that her team is now working to equip Ada with more relevant data on tropical diseases like Chagas and dengue. They're also analyzing what kinds of physical diagnostic tests they could give people - along with Ada - to confirm some of its assessments.</p><p>"Most healthcare workers work door-to-door and can track patient symptoms," Azadzoy said. "The vision we have is we can put Ada into their hands and even connect Ada with diagnostics tests so that - at the home of the patient -they can pull it out and say, 'OK this is confirmed,'" she said.</p><h2>Are symptom checkers the next big thing in primary care?</h2><p>Since it was founded in Berlin in 2011, Ada has raised $69.3 million with the help of several big-name backers including William Tunstall-Pedoe, the AI entrepreneur behind Amazon's Alexa, and Google's chief business officer Philipp Schindler. The company says Ada has already been used by 6 million people in the US and Europe, where it is one of the highest ranked medical apps.</p><p>Ada is not the only tool that lets users input and track their symptoms. Another so-called "symptom checker" is <a href="https://www.khealth.ai/">primary-care app K Health</a>, which launched in 2016.</p><p>If these services can get the <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword> and AI right, they offer a long list of potential benefits, including reducing healthcare costs, saving time for patients and doctors, slashing unnecessary worry - and even, one day perhaps, helping to prevent an outbreak like <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ebola-outbreak-spreading-in-congo-2018-5">Ebola</a>.</p><p>But more data is needed on the effectiveness of these services. The last comprehensive assessment of symptom checkers was <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h3480">published by Harvard Medical School researchers</a> in 2015, before Ada or K Health existed. Since then, at least half a dozen other services have emerged as well.</p><p>Until better data becomes available on these apps, they can at least offer users an educated assessment about what's causing a symptom like a sore throat. And in rural areas where people don't have access to a healthcare provider, that could be a huge source of support.</p><p>"The first step towards getting the right treatment is understanding what's ailing you," Nathrath said.</p><p class="tagline"><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/intelligence/ai-in-us-healthcare?IR=T&amp;utm_source=businessinsider&amp;utm_medium=ctgr&amp;utm_term=ctgr_leadgen&amp;utm_content=dhealth_ctgr_leadgen&amp;utm_campaign=dhealth_ctgr_leadgen_ai_in_us_healthcare"></a></hr></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/blood-bank-creator-dr-charles-drew-2017-2">The incredible story of one doctor who saved the lives of a million soldiers</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Bill and Melinda Gates are backing a new tool that lets you type in any illness symptoms and learn what's ailing you

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><ul><li><strong>More than 250 brands have reportedly pulled their spend from Google's services after a newspaper investigation found their ads appearing next to extremist content on YouTube.</strong></li><li><strong>Business Insider spoke to more than a dozen ad executives who suggested the boycott smacks of "opportunism" and a chance to gleefully bash the biggest player in the online ad industry.</strong></li><li><strong>Some executives suggested advertisers and agencies are hopeful Google's pain over the issue will continue so they can use it as leverage in their negotiations with the online ad giant. Others said the boycott shows just how little many people understand about the way online <keyword id="35666" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="advertising">advertising</keyword> works. </strong></li></ul><p>LONDON - The timing could not have been worse.</p><p>On the week leading up to the annual ad industry event Advertising Week Europe, The Times of London ramped up its investigation into <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/big-brands-fund-terror-knnxfgb98">brand ads inadvertently appearing next to extremist content on YouTube and funding the videos' creators.</a></p><p>By the second day of the London-based trade show, <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/global-brands-shun-google-p9zlr7bq7?shareToken=6a42db1821827a01c64a58bb797c2870">The Times reported that more than 250 brands - from L'Oreal, to McDonald's, Audi, and HSBC - had suspended their campaigns from YouTube</a>&#xa0;(and in some cases, Google's display ad platform that serves ads to third-party websites)&#xa0;until Google could give them assurances that their ads would not appear next to videos containing hate speech, promoting terror organizations, or other obviously unsafe content for their brands to be associated with.</p><p>Google had to devote much of its first session at the event - an on-stage chat between its European boss Matt Brittin and Unilever marketing chief Keith Weed - <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/matt-brittin-on-how-google-plans-to-tackle-its-youtube-brand-safety-problem-2017-3">to apologizing about the issue and promising updates to its policies, controls, and hiring strategy in order to tackle it.</a></p><p>The YouTube advertiser boycott also dominated the other on-stage discussions that took place during the week, as ad executives took their chance to admonish Google for not doing enough to keep brands safe.</p><p>Behind the scenes, in the "Google Lounge" where speakers and VIPs congregate before they head to the day's sessions, Google's European executives were witnessed holding discussions with agencies and trade bodies.</p><h2>Online ad misplacement is nothing new</h2><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Brand safety has been an issue ever since website owners began monetizing their content on the internet. Google "funny ad misplacements" and you'll find a plethora of examples, like the now legendary insurance brand's ad featuring a duck glaring from the screen, situated on an article titled: "Anatidaephobia - The Fear That You Are Being Watched By A Duck"<p>So why the sudden fuss now? It's not like the association between Google funding terrorist sympathizers with its ad systems is anything new. Last year, for example, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/b06d18c0-1bfb-11e6-8fa5-44094f6d9c46">The Financial Times reported</a> on the website for the Islamist extremist accused of funding the 2009 Jakarta suicide bombings that was using Google AdSense to make money from ads from brands including Microsoft, IBM, and Citigroup.</p><p>Business Insider spoke to around a dozen executives attending Ad Week Europe to attempt to find out what is really behind the boycott.</p><h2>Why ad misplacement&#xa0;keeps happening and what advertisers want Google to do about it</h2><p>Online advertising companies pride themselves on offering advertisers access to big audiences at a price that comes at a fraction of the cost of other, "traditional" <keyword id="6354777" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Media">media</keyword>.</p><p>When advertisers buy online media, they rarely negotiate each individual placement. Instead they buy audiences - usually across a group of websites, or in this case YouTube videos - using a method called programmatic, which uses automated systems to bid on each ad slot on the advertiser's behalf. Often, advertisers are pushed by their procurement departments to aim to reach the largest audience for the smallest cost as a priority, rather than&#xa0;taking account of the context in which their ads will appear.</p><p>Advertisers can insist on having whitelists (a list of websites or types of content that their ads *can* appear on) and blacklists (a list of websites or types of content that their ads *can't* appear on) in order to mitigate the risk of their ads appearing next to questionable content. Managing such lists can be time-consuming, ad verification services usually&#xa0;come with extra costs, and with millions of pieces of content being uploaded to the web every day, they&#xa0;still can't 100% guarantee brand safety.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/matt-brittin-on-how-google-plans-to-tackle-its-youtube-brand-safety-problem-2017-3">Google's European boss Matt Brittin explained to Business Insider on&#xa0;Monday</a> that 400 hours of user-generated video are uploaded to YouTube every minute and thousands of websites added to Google's&#xa0;AdSense network each day, which makes it extremely difficult to police which content is safe for brands to advertise against and which isn't. And that's not to mention the fact that Google doesn't want to curtail free speech in the process.</p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>Google did say&#xa0;on Tuesday, however, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-announces-tougher-policies-hiring-brand-ads-extremist-content-2017-3">that it is employing more people, deploying more technology, and updating its policies to help review questionable content for advertising.</a><p>But that doesn't rub with some advertisers</p><p>One marketer at a brand that unwittingly found one of its ads next to a hate speech video on YouTube told Business Insider he took issue with Google's stance to monetize first, moderate later. Other publishers, such as news publications, can insert tags into their articles - to make sure brand ads don't appear next to news stories about bomb attacks, for example.</p><p>The marketer, who wished to remain anonymous, believed no amount of staffing up would offer a foolproof guarantee to prevent such an incident from taking place again - but a switch in strategy to review content first before serving ads against it would help.&#xa0;<a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/uk-government-pulls-all-google-ads-2017-3">That's a view shared by UK advertiser body ISBA</a>, which suggested Google should place recently uploaded content in a kind of quarantine until it could guarantee brands were safe to advertise against it.</p><h2>Schadenfreude</h2><p>Google dominates the digital advertising industry. Its dominance threatens the online news business. It threatens the TV business. And it threatens advertising-buying agencies who fear their clients could simply go to Google direct and cut out the middle-man. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/wpp-ceo-sir-martin-sorrell-asks-google-to-take-more-responsibility-2017-3">Google-bashing is quite common in the ad industry.</a></p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_left"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>One UK advertising executive who also spoke to Business Insider on a condition of anonymity, said: "Nobody wants to take on the bully in the playground, but once one person does, everyone can pile in ... It's like Manchester United. Who likes Manchester United and doesn't support them? They used to smash everyone for years and now people are enjoying their bad streak [of performance]."<p>The reason so many UK advertisers, specifically, decided to lay&#xa0;into Google this week may also have a little something to do with being British, according to another UK ad agency&#xa0;veteran: "It's a very British thing: We like underdogs, we don't like it when people succeed. When people get on top, we want to kick them down."</p><p>Nonetheless, most&#xa0;of the executives we spoke to were surprised at the sheer amount of volume placed in Google's direction over this ad misplacement issue, given the small amount of ad dollars that were likely affected.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/matt-brittin-on-how-google-plans-to-tackle-its-youtube-brand-safety-problem-2017-3">Google's Brittin said on Monday</a> that the company is talking about "pennies not pounds" - a view shared by most of the executives we spoke to, who thought the percentage of ads appearing next to extremist videos is likely negligible.</p><p>The following questions came up often in our conversations with advertising executives: Had The Times not conducted its investigation, would any of the brands have noticed any negative impact? Would anyone watching a hate speech video, for example, really think those views were shared by the advertiser that appeared next to it?</p><h2>'Opportunism'</h2><p>Another UK-based industry veteran said the escalation of public negative sentiment from the ad industry&#xa0;versus Google smacks of "opportunism".</p><p>They added: "It's bad that ISIS content is out there. [British intelligence agency] MI6 should be asking for the postal address where the check [generated by YouTube ad revenue] is being sent, but fake news was 10,000 times bigger. That was seen by millions of people. Ads on the spam sites of the web, yes. '25 Cheerleader Costume Disasters - You Won't Believe Number 24' - that stuff is real and it is [of] scale, but most of those as are bought by agency trading desks."</p><p>The advertising agency sector has been plagued with transparency issues in recent months. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ana-report-alleges-widespread-ad-agency-kickback-schemes-2016-6">A high-profile report in the US published last summer alleged agencies unethically pad their profits through non-transparent practices such as rebate schemes and arbitrage.</a> All the big agency groups denounced the findings. But nevertheless, the report, commissioned by the Association of National Advertisers, sparked a wave of media agency reviews, audits, and has <a href="https://www.marketingweek.com/2017/01/31/mark-ritson-marc-pritchard-viewability-fraud-speech/">fueled a conversation in the industry about mistrust between agencies and their clients.</a></p><p>Google's current scandal may serve to take the heat off, for a little bit.</p><p>Ryan Kangisser, founder of ad tech consultancy I/O, said: "As far as agencies are concerned, I think this recent storm has helped to shift attention away from the ongoing transparency and brand safety concerns - related to their own programmatic offerings - and allowed them to reinstate their position as gatekeepers by holding Google much closer to account.&#xa0; It is also a good opportunity to show leadership as well as create differentiation in the measures they are putting in place to mitigate the prevailing issues around brand safety and fraud."</p><h2>Some agency groups and advertisers may use Google's current situation as leverage</h2><p>This particular round of negative PR for Google could serve to give agencies leverage when it comes to negotiating what they really want from the online ad giant. <a href="https://amp.businessinsider.com/havas-stops-all-ad-spend-on-google-and-youtube-2017-3">Only one agency group - Havas UK - has suspended all its clients' advertising&#xa0;from YouTube</a> (a move <a href="https://twitter.com/YannickBollore/status/842813220746334209">not mirrored by Havas globally</a>). While not pulling spend, the&#xa0;other big agency groups have still <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/ipg-ceo-hold-google-economically-accountable-to-fix-extremist-ads-2017-3">taken turns</a> to demand Google <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/wpp-chief-sir-martin-sorrell-on-youtube-advertiser-suspension-2017-3">take more responsibility</a> for&#xa0;the content that appears on its platforms.</p><p>Many agency groups (and others in the ad industry) <a href="http://www.thedrum.com/news/2016/03/24/walled-gardens-facebook-and-google-are-real-ad-blockers-warn-publishers-and-ad-tech">accuse Google of being a "walled garden"</a>&#xa0;because it doesn't offer open access to all its data. It means agency trading desks can't add tracking pixels to its inventory to apply learnings from campaigns they run on YouTube to ads they run on other video sites. Agencies&#xa0;are also restricted from buying YouTube inventory through third-party demand-side platforms and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-shuts-down-third-party-access-to-youtube-ads-via-the-doubleclick-ad-exchange-2015-8">are forced to purchase ads on the video site via Google's DoubleClick Bid Manager</a>. Now those groups have more fuel to argue that Google should bring that wall down, some of the people we spoke to suggested.</p><p>One UK advertising executive speculated that a media agency network could now theoretically say: "If we put [YouTube] inventory through our filter, we will clean it up, make it safe, and make a fortune on the side."</p><p>Meanwhile, other media owners - like broadcasters and online publishers - can use the current wave of negativity about Google as a marketing tool to reinforce the value of their premium, apparently safer, environments to advertisers.</p><h2>A lack of understanding about what's really going on</h2><p>The executives we spoke to said one of the reasons the brand safety row has flared up is because the issue of ads appearing next to ISIS videos is easier for senior management teams to understand than some of the other challenges affecting the online ad market, like ad fraud, bots, and media agencies' business models.</p><p>Almost everyone in the business uses YouTube. Their kids use it. Something like Google's ad exchange, AdX, is a more difficult concept to fathom. A CEO can see a screenshot of their brand ad next to a terrorist YouTube video on the front page of The Times and immediately understand that isn't a good look from a PR perspective. There's an obvious culprit to blame: Google. There's a clear reaction to take: Threaten to pull spend.</p><p>But even that kind of action has revealed a lack of education in clients. Business Insider learned that one client joining the advertiser boycott told Google it wanted to cut all of its spend - including search (most of the advertisers as part of the protest restricted their suspensions to just YouTube and Google's display ad network). Just a couple of hours later, the marketer got back in touch to switch search back on, having realized their mistake (and presumably having seen a negative impact on their e-commerce activity).</p><p>Digital advertising is complex and not easy for people without experience in the industry or without a technical background to get their heads around.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/google-meeting-government-youtube-extremist-video-ads-boycott-suspension-2017-3">A letter from Yvette Cooper, the chair of the UK government's home affairs committee, sent to Google on Friday said</a>: "It is inexplicable to us that Google can move very fast to remove material from YouTube when it is found to be copyrighted, but that the same prompt action is not taken when the material involves proscribed organizations and hateful and illegal content."</p><p>But as VC firm Andreessen Horowitz partner Benedict Evans pointed out in a tweet, YouTube's copyright detection service Content ID can't be directly applied to filtering out hate speech:</p><p>It's also incumbent on advertisers to have at least some idea of where their ad spend is going, the executives we spoke to said. For every pop music video, or Zoella makeup tutorial on YouTube, it should be no surprise their ads will likely be served against some truly unprofessional content shot on a shaky mobile phone - and that a small percentage of that could potentially be offensive. Any platform that is built on user-generated content carries that risk.&#xa0;Advertisers can also choose not to go there and pay only for premium placements, but most don't.</p><p>Google shouldn't be let completely off the hook, either, the people we spoke to said. The fact that the level of disquiet from advertisers against the company grew so quickly shows it has some fundamental relationship problems with the industry. And, as media-buying firm GroupM's chief digital officer <a href="http://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/when-content-rotten-brand-safety-zero-tolerance-game/1428082">Rob Norman pointed out in an article for Campaign, YouTube funding accounts associated with terror and violence poses a clear "societal risk"</a>.</p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p>But the storm is also likely not yet over. The UK government could decide to get tougher and haul Google in front of another squirm-inducing parliamentary select committee, as it did over its tax affairs. The issue, which has been isolated mostly to the UK so far, could spread to other regions - <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/pivotal-analyst-brian-wieser-downgraded-google-after-youtube-advertiser-boycott-in-the-uk-2017-3">a possibility Pivotal research analyst Brian Wieser floated as he downgraded Google's stock earlier this week</a>. And there's also the chance&#xa0;that ads could still be found appearing next to inappropriate content even after the changes to its policies and advertiser tools are introduced.</p><p>The advertiser boycott is unlikely to be permanent. Google's audience is far too big for them to stay away forever. But it remains to be seen whether Google can overcome a clear level of distrust from the advertising industry - the stakeholders it relies on the most.</p><p class="tagline">Get the latest Google stock price<a href="http://markets.businessinsider.com/stock/GOOG-Quote"> here.</a></p><div></div><div></div><div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/terry-crews-intermittent-fasting-fit-shape-autophagy-diet-exercise-netflix-2017-2">Terry Crews explains how intermittent fasting keeps him in shape</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="NjY2QzYTE6SnATuauHloX3BbJvCMJY08" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

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