Google’s chief business officer, Philipp Schindler (pictured above), has played down Google’s global woes as brands boycott it in droves following revelations ads had been shown next to hate and extremist videos on the Google-owned YouTube.

Schindler said the issue affects “very, very, very small numbers” of advertisers.

In a statement sent to B&T by Google Australia, Schindler said: “When we spoke with many of our top brand advertisers, it was clear that the videos they had flagged received less than 1/1000th of a percent of the advertisers’ total impressions.

“Of course, when we find that ads mistakenly ran against content that doesn’t comply with our policies, we immediately remove those ads” the statement read.

Google has promised to clamp down on extremist videos shown on its platforms and implement new algorithms to have them banned. Some countries – led by Germany – are planning to implement hefty fines in the tens-of-thousands for tech companies that turn a blind eye to hate content on their sites.

A Google spokesperson added: “As part of our commitment to provide even more transparency and visibility to our advertising partners, we’ll be working with trusted vendors to provide 3rd party brand safety reporting on YouTube. We are working with companies that are MRC-accredited for ad verification on this initiative and will begin integrating these technologies shortly.”