Microsoft Advertising banned 400,000 websites from their network last year

Microsoft Advertising today announced it has banned nearly 400,000 websites last year from Microsoft ad network and suspended nearly 270,000 ad accounts. Microsoft took down 3 billion ads because of policy violations, a number almost twice as many as in 2020.

Microsoft introduced identity verification for selected advertisers, that are now required to establish their identity as a business or as an individual by submitting all necessary information and documents. Microsoft says the advertiser identity verification program helped weed out bad actors from the advertising ecosystem and stop the spread of misleading and egregious ads at the root.

Advertiser identity verification program is currently available in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, France, India, Mexico, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and United States, but Microsoft says it is expanding its scope.