Marks & Spencer joins McDonald’s, L’Oreal, Audi, BBC in boycotting Google

British retailer Marks and Spencer on 19 March joined other popular brands to boycott Google’s YouTube over its failure in removing extremist content. McDonald’s, L’Oreal, Audi, RBS, the BBC, O2, HSBC, The Guardian, Domino's and Lloyds are some of the famous companies that have already pulled their advertisements from YouTube.

According to the emerging media reports, Waitrose, Barclays, Vodafone and Sky are also considering to suspend their marketing on YouTube following concerns that the adverts are inadvertently funding terror groups.

‘In order to ensure brand safety, we are pausing activity across Google platforms whilst the matter is worked through,’ said an Marks and Spencer spokesperson.

On 17 March, all government advertisement were suspended from the video- sharing platform as some of the adverts were being shown alongside YouTube videos containing extremist material

The UK Officials, reportedly, have asked Google to provide guarantee that public money would not fund hate content.

In the wake of rising anger, Google has announced that it will introduce changes in its advertising policies. The web giant has said that it would give clients more control over where their advertisements appear on YouTube.

The person who posts videos get £6.15 of advertising revenue from YouTube for every 1,000 views.

A Times of London investigation revealed that adverts from the British government along with many other major firms surfaced on YouTube alongside offensive content from the likes of American white nationalist David Duke and pastor Steven Anderson, who had praised the killing of 49 people in an Orlando gay nightclub in June 2016.