Several advertisers and even the U.K. government have pulled out of YouTube over the last week after complaining that their ads were displayed alongside controversial content. Today YouTube owner Google Inc. revealed a few of the ways it hopes to address their concerns and give brands better control over where their ads are displayed.

Google outlined its new plans in a blog post by Chief Business Officer Philipp Schindler. “Recently, we had a number of cases where brands’ ads appeared on content that was not aligned with their values,” Schindler said in the post. “For this, we deeply apologize. We know that this is unacceptable to the advertisers and agencies who put their trust in us.”

According to Schindler, Google will be more proactive in removing ads from controversial sites and videos, and he said that the company will be “taking a tougher stance on hateful, offensive and derogatory content.” Google will also take more steps to ensure that ads are appearing only on channels that are part of the YouTube Partner Program, which have already been vetted for their material.

While Google will be policing its ads more thoroughly, the company is also updating features for brands to make it easier for them to dictate where their ads appear. This includes safer default settings for advertisers, which will follow stricter guidelines for where ads are placed. Google will also simplify its exclusions settings to allow brands to block specific sites or channels. At the same time, the company will introduce more fine-tuned controls that will allow them to exclude certain types of content.

Schindler also said that Google will offer more transparency to advertisers on where exactly their brands are appearing, and he said that video-level reporting tools will be made available to all advertisers in the coming months.

With its stricter stance on controversial material, Google will have to remove more ads than ever, but Schindler said that the company will be hiring more people and expanding its artificial intelligence tools to deal with the new workload.

“We believe the combination of these new policies and controls will significantly strengthen our ability to help advertisers reach audiences at scale, while respecting their values,” Schindler said.

Photo: Rego – d4u.hu via photopin cc