Tech giants Meta and Google are facing scrutiny for a secret advertising campaign that targeted teenagers on YouTube with Instagram ads, which was in violation of Google’s own policies. The campaign, exposed by the Financial Times, shows how these companies have broken the rules to reach a young audience, sparking a wave of controversy.

According to a Financial Times report, Meta and Google teamed up to run a secret campaign to show Instagram ads to users aged 13 to 17 on YouTube. The move directly contradicts Google’s own rules, which prohibit advertising to children under the age of 18. The ads were targeting a specific group labeled as “unknown” in Google’s ad system — a category that reportedly represents users whose age, gender or other demographics have not been identified.

However, it turns out that Google could infer with a high degree of accuracy that these “unknown” users were actually teenagers, using data from app downloads and online activity. This helped companies circumvent restrictions imposed by Google in 2021 aimed at preventing ads targeting minors based on their age, gender, or interests.

The campaign was reportedly conducted with the help of Spark Foundry, an ad agency based in the US. The program was run in Canada this year, and was tested in the US in May. The plan was to eventually roll it out globally and use it to promote other services such as Facebook. The timing of the campaign coincided with a decline in Google’s ad revenue and younger Meta users moving to competing platforms such as TikTok.

After the campaign was exposed, Google launched an investigation and canceled the program. In a statement to the publication, Google emphasized, “We prohibit showing personalized ads to people under the age of 18.” The company also promised to reinforce its policies with its sales teams to prevent any attempts to circumvent the rules in the future.

In 2023, Meta made some changes to its advertising systems, including removing the option to target users under the age of 18 by gender on Facebook and Instagram. The company explained that these updates were designed to ensure that teens only see ads that are appropriate for their age and relevant to the products and services available where they live.

The incident raises serious questions about how far tech companies will go to maintain their influence and advertising revenue, even if it means breaking their own rules. As Google and Meta face the fallout from the controversy, the story serves as a reminder of the need for transparency and strict adherence to ethical standards in digital advertising.