Google intends to update its policy that governs the ads for financial services and products so it can comply better with the new verification requirements for financial services advertisers targeting the UK. According to the FCA’s new rules, to show any kind of ads for financial services advertises need to be verified by Google. That also applies to showing any ads to British users who appear seeking financial services. That rule also applies to companies that both regulated and not regulated by the FCA, aka any and all companies that provide such services, regardless of their license. To get verified, applications must be submitted by an Authorized Representative of the organization via a form that is available on the FCA’s website. This updated policy will be published on August 30th 2021 and will come into force a week later. I wonder whether that will help curb the scams, at least.
Considering that I turn down about 95% of the advertising/partnership inquiries that I get on a weekly basis from companies that are of questionable character and quality, I would say that any type of verification process by Google will ultimately help the problem out quite a bit.
Google's biggest issue is that they try to put too much emphasis on algorithms and other automated processes in areas of their business that would be much better served with a little human involvement. A little manual background check by a real person (like myself) goes a long way towards figuring out if a person or company is a solid outfit and a good fit from an advertising perspective. I haven't batted 100% with that method over the years but I've got pretty damn close. But with that said, we'll occasionally have a sponsor come along that ends up being a shit show, but for the most part, we've done a pretty good job over the years filtering out a lot of the scammers and snake oil salesmen to prevent them from ever being a part of this site.
Well @Baron a suggestion from the peanut gallery: Maybe you should look into user verification as well. A pipe dream I know, it's just that on some days I can't tell if I'm on Stormfront or ET.