Google is launching a new Transparency Center to make it easier for users to learn more about its product policies. The central hub collects existing resources and policies to inform users on how Google creates and enforces them.
With the new hub, users can learn more about Google’s policy development process, transparency reports, policies by product or service, and reporting tools.
“As the online threat landscape changes, our policies evolve, helping to prevent abuse on our platforms,” wrote David Graff, Google’s VP of Trust and Safety, in a blog post. “And since the uses of our products differ, we tailor our policies to each platform, aiming to create a safe and positive experience for everyone. With the Transparency Center, you can learn about our policy development process, how we enforce our policies, and view each policy by product and service.”
Google started publishing transparency reports over a decade ago to show users how government policy impacts access to information. Users can now access the Transparency Reports to read more about Google’s transparency reports, insight into how the company enforces its policies across products and where to view them in full.The Transparency Center has a dedicated page to help users find ways to report harmful content and make appeals across Google’s services.
The hub includes statistics about the actions that Google takes to ensure safety. For instance, the hub’s homepage indicates that Google blocked 5.2 billion bad ads in 2022 across Google products to protect users from scams. The page also notes that Google removed more than 11 million YouTube videos in the second half of 2022 for violating its community guidelines. Also in the second half of 2022, Google removed from Google Search results more than 437,000 URLs reported for CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material).
