Clicking away

Major advertisers including Johnson & Johnson, AT&T, Audi and Verizon have suspended their marketing campaigns on Google’s YouTube site because ads for their brands were appearing alongside offensive videos, including some that promoted terrorism. Google depends on automated programs to place ads in YouTube videos because of the site’s enormous catalog, and the company has said it will increase efforts to block ads on videos that are “hateful, offensive and derogatory.” YouTube is one of the fastest-growing parts of Google’s ad system, so an extended boycott could dent the company’s revenue.