Google Suspends Over 39 Million Ad Accounts in 2024 Using AI, Cracks Down on Global Ad Fraud
In a sweeping move to combat digital ad fraud, Google announced it has suspended a staggering 39.2 million advertiser accounts in 2024 — a figure that more than triples last year’s total. The tech giant credits this massive crackdown to its advanced artificial intelligence systems and a growing arsenal of safety tools powered by large language models (LLMs).
The announcement was made during a virtual media roundtable, where Alex Rodriguez, General Manager for Ads Safety at Google, detailed the company’s robust safety efforts. “While these AI models are critical and have delivered significant improvements, we continue to rely on human oversight throughout the process,” Rodriguez stated.
AI-Driven Fraud Detection on a Global Scale
The use of LLMs has enabled Google to proactively detect and suspend fraudulent ad accounts — often before they even have the chance to run a single advertisement. These models analyze signals like business impersonation, fake payment methods, and behavior patterns to flag bad actors with greater accuracy.
In 2024 alone, Google launched more than 50 AI-powered upgrades aimed at boosting its ad safety protocols across services. These upgrades not only targeted general ad fraud but also addressed rising threats like deepfake ads, impersonations of public figures, and scams targeting sensitive areas such as healthcare and finance.
DeepMind & Multi-Team Collaboration
Rodriguez revealed that more than 100 experts from across Google’s internal teams — including Ads Safety, Trust and Safety, and researchers from DeepMind — collaborated on understanding and preventing deepfake-related scams. This cross-functional team developed technical tools and implemented over 30 updates to Google’s ad and publisher policies.
Their efforts paid off. More than 700,000 accounts involved in fraudulent deepfake ads were suspended, leading to a 90% decline in reports of such scams, according to the company.
Regional Insights: India and the U.S. Hit Hardest
In the United States, Google led the global fight against ad fraud with the suspension of 39.2 million advertiser accounts and the removal of 1.8 billion individual ads in 2024. Key violations included ad network manipulation, trademark infringement, deceptive healthcare claims, and unauthorized personalized advertising.
India, now the world’s most populous country and a digital powerhouse, ranked second with 2.9 million ad accounts suspended. Google also removed 247.4 million ads in India, citing top violations such as unauthorized financial promotions, misuse of trademarks, and online gambling.
Globally, around 5 million of the total suspended accounts were linked to scam operations. In total, Google removed nearly half a billion scam-related ads, underscoring the scale of the threat.
Election Safety and Transparency
With over half the world’s population heading to the polls in 2024, Google verified more than 8,900 new election-related advertisers and took down over 10.7 million election-related ads. While this number may seem large, Google emphasized that election ads make up a small percentage of total ad volume and thus have a limited impact on broader safety statistics.
Fewer Suspensions, Better Prevention
Compared to the previous year, some ad safety metrics showed a decline. In 2023, Google blocked 5.5 billion ads and took action against 2.1 billion publisher pages. In 2024, those numbers dropped slightly to 5.1 billion ads blocked and 1.3 billion pages removed — a decrease the company attributes to better preventative measures.
“These figures reflect improved early detection,” Google told TechCrunch. “By stopping fraudulent accounts sooner, fewer bad ads get created in the first place.”
Additionally, Google restricted 9.1 billion ads in 2024, placing temporary or permanent limits based on policy violations.
Fairness, Appeals, and Clearer Policies
Despite the strong enforcement, large-scale account suspensions often raise questions about fairness and transparency. Google emphasized that it provides an appeals process, including human reviews, to ensure its enforcement actions are appropriate and justified.
Rodriguez acknowledged that communication about suspensions wasn’t always clear. “We recognized that our messaging around enforcement reasons needed improvement. That’s why we updated our transparency tools and policy explanations to help advertisers better understand the rationale behind account actions.”
These transparency updates are part of a broader initiative for 2024 and beyond, aimed at making Google’s ad platform safer, fairer, and more user-friendly for legitimate advertisers.