Google largely resolved a significant reporting issue that affected its advertising platform, with some competitive metrics still pending restoration.
Why we care. The glitch exposed some advertisers to data from other Google Merchant Center accounts, raising privacy concerns and disrupting normal reporting services.
Timeline of events:
- July 30: Issue begins, and is reported by several advertisers
- July 31: Serving issue resolved
- August 1: Google pauses access to certain reports
- August 4: Most reporting services restored for unaffected accounts
- August 6: Nearly all services restored, with some competitive metrics still pending
The impact:
- Advertisers served ads for products from other accounts
- Affected advertisers could see other accounts’ products in their reporting
- Multiple reporting services were temporarily unavailable
What’s next:
- Google will contact impacted customers with further details
- Credits will be issued to affected advertisers in the coming weeks
- Incorrect data has been removed from affected accounts
Between the lines. Google emphasized that the issue was caused by an ads serving bug and was not related to customer migration to the new Google Merchant Center.
The bottom line. While Google has largely contained the issue, the incident highlights the potential vulnerabilities in complex advertising ecosystems and the importance of swift response to data privacy concerns.
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About the author
Anu Adegbola has been Paid Media Editor of Search Engine Land since 2024. She covers paid search, paid social, retail media, video and more.
In 2008, Anu’s career started with
delivering digital marketing campaigns (mostly but not exclusively Paid Search) by building strategies, maximising ROI, automating repetitive processes and bringing efficiency from every part of marketing departments through inspiring leadership both on agency, client and marketing tech side.
Outside editing Search Engine Land article she is the founder of PPC networking event – PPC Live, host of weekly podcast PPCChat Roundup, and brand evangelist at ClickTech.
She is also an international speaker with some of the stages she has presented on being SMX (US), SMX (Munich), Friends of Search (Amsterdam), brightonSEO, The Marketing Meetup, HeroConf (PPC Hero), SearchLove, BiddableWorld, SESLondon, PPC Chat Live, AdWorld Experience (Bologna) and more.
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