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Monday 20 March 2017 1:57 pm

Google’s top European boss Matt Brittin has apologised to its advertising clients over extremist content

By: Lynsey Barber

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The European boss of under fire tech company Google has apologised to clients over its failure to stop adverts appearing next to extremist content.

"I think we can do better," said Matt Brittin on the morning that Marks and Spencer pulled its ads from YouTube.

It follows a weekend when several other advertisers put a temporary halt to their brands appearing on video content.

He said he was confident the firm could come to a solution, but, the tech giant faces growing pressure over its ability to control what appears on YouTube and what adverts are shown next to videos.

Google was last week accused of profiting from extremism by a group of MPs on the home affairs select committee.

However, Brittin assured an audience at Advertising Week Europe that any cash coming from such adverts was in the pounds and pence and that just a small proportion of videos were affected.

The tech company has thousands of people working on removing inappropriate content and has removed millions of videos, but said it was working on improving this process, including with the help of machine learning technology, as well as improving the control advertisers have over where their content appears.

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