Google and Facebook, the two dominant forces in online advertising, are tightening guidelines for election ads as they brace for this fall’s midterm races. Last month, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, said his company would start verifying the identity of people buying political or issue ads, starting with election ads in the United States and then expanding to other countries around the world. Under its new policies, Google said political ads would include a disclosure about who is paying for them and that it planned to publish a transparency report focused on election ads. It will also create a database of election ads that includes information on funding sources and the amount of money spent. Google plans to start the process of verifying political advertisers at the end of May and said the new policies would go into effect on July 10.

Source: New York Times May 04, 2018 19:34 UTC