The revelation about Google, made by people familiar with an internal company investigation, adds it to a growing list of iconic tech companies used by a disinformation operation that U.S. intelligences services have said was approved by the Kremlin. Twitter and Facebook already had disclosed some Russian accounts, and U.S. investigators say other companies likely were exploited as well.
Google found that tens of thousands of dollars were spent on ads by Russian agents whose targets included Google’s YouTube and gmail services, along with the company’s signature search engine and its DoubleClick ad network, said the people familiar with the internal investigation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss matters that had not been made public.