Google's YouTube hosts ads on its platform and places video ads on other sites through the Google Video Partners program.

Google commands a higher fee, assuring advertisers that it will position their ads on premium websites, play them before the primary video content with the audio turned on, and charge them only for ads that viewers do not skip.

Adalytics research indicates that Google breaches these standards approximately 80% of the time, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Accusations against Google include ad placement in small, automatically-played, muted videos that are not the page's primary content and on sites not meeting Google's monetization standards.

Adalytics assembled its data by monitoring campaigns from over 1,100 brands with billions of ad impressions from 2020 to 2023. Google contested the research findings.

The issue also affected government agencies like Medicare, the U.S. Army, the Social Security Administration, and the New York City municipal government.

Price Action: GOOG shares traded higher by 1.42% at $120.70 on the last check Wednesday.

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.