Google says it will do a better job of verifying the identity of political ad buyers in the US by requiring a copy of a government-issued ID and other information.

In a blogpost, the Google executive Kent Walker said the company would also require the disclosure of who is paying for the ad.

He also repeated a pledge he made in November to create a library of such ads that will be searchable by anyone by this summer: “We’ll also release a new Transparency Report specifically focused on election ads. This Report will describe who is buying election-related ads on our platforms and how much money is being spent. We’re also building a searchable library for election ads, where anyone can find which election ads [were] purchased on Google and who paid for them.”

Google’s blogpost stops short of declaring support for the Honest Ads Act, a bill that would impose disclosure requirements on online ads, similar to what is required for television and other media. Facebook and Twitter support that bill.



Google says applications under the new system will open by the end of May, with approval taking up to five days.