Home The Sell Sider We Need A Collective Push To End Site Spoofing

We Need A Collective Push To End Site Spoofing

SHARE:

The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community.

Today’s column is written by Jana Meron, vice president of programmatic and data strategy at Business Insider. Jana will present “Insider View From The Publisher” at AdExchanger’s upcoming PROGRAMMATIC I/O New York conference Oct. 25-26.

Ad fraud is a much-discussed headache for the digital advertising industry, but it wasn’t until Business Insider discovered arbitrageurs misrepresenting our own video inventory that we realized what a tricky problem it’s become.

We discovered it was happening when a displeased advertiser revealed the reason for their discontent: It was buying ads on the open exchange for significantly less than the private marketplace we had in place with them.

But here’s the thing. It was news to us that the advertiser had ever purchased any of our video inventory on the open exchange. Turns out they were buying ads from an unauthorized seller. More importantly, the ads never actually appeared on Business Insider.

We found that while the advertiser spent several thousand dollars on our ads – or so they thought – they actually purchased only a tiny amount of our inventory, less than $100 worth.

Determining how this was happening was tough. We spent dozens of hours working closely with various exchanges to track down shady sellers and get a clearer picture of how our ads were being misrepresented, including a painstaking effort poring through our inventory channels.

A few of our demand-side platform partners helped us track down the shady sellers. But once we got in touch with the sellers it was even more challenging to shut it down. One arbitrageur even threw up its hands: “We’re just the pipes, not the sheriff.”

Until then, while we knew fraud was happening in the industry, we also believed that because of tight controls we had in place that it wasn’t happening to us. What we learned is that there was something about the whole ecosystem that we first needed to uncover before being able to truly combat the fraud.

Who was buying our inventory and re-selling it? What entity was buying impressions and then multiplying them – by a factor of 10 – and reselling our inventory? And who was “spoofing” our valuable inventory?

We redoubled our efforts to ensure our inventory wasn’t being misrepresented in the marketplace. Where previously we allowed many buyers access to it – assuming they were behaving in good faith – now we operated under the assumption that buyers are guilty until proven innocent (sorry!).

Subscribe

AdExchanger Daily

Get our editors’ roundup delivered to your inbox every weekday.

It took the better part of this year to understand how this all happens and what we as a company need to do to prevent it. Yet our efforts feel insufficient, given the scope of the problem. We believe the industry as a whole must work collectively to tackle the ad fraud problem. Publishers can’t do it alone.

Exchanges must work to ensure buyers don’t resell inventory. Supply-side platforms (SSPs) do need to play sheriff. And if they feel that’s too much to ask of them, they should at least enforce their contracts with buyers. While it’s difficult to identify fraud, not trying to point out shady intermediaries is a dereliction of an SSP’s duty to its buy-side and sell-side partners. As the first line of defense against this kind of fraud, exchanges need to commit to enforcing higher standards.

Buyers must get real. If ads appear too good (cheap) to be true, they most likely are. Buying on the open exchange is a brand risk because there’s no control over where ads will appear. Plus, advertisers need to worry about alienating publishers by acting carelessly. They should seek third parties to play a role in tracking fraud percentages and suggesting sites for blacklisting. Buyers should also sort through sites with abnormally high click-through rates as these, too, are likely too good to be true. Lastly, they should work closely with exchanges willing to help test for fraud.

Finally, publishers must get on board. Discouraging the unauthorized reselling of inventory is imperative. It’s why Business Insider has been a staunch advocate of IAB Tech Lab’s Ads.txt initiative, a groundbreaking effort specifically aimed at reducing domain spoofing and unauthorized selling of publisher inventory. Unfortunately, most publishers have yet to sign on to the initiative, which is needed for the industry overall to follow; trading desks, for example are unlikely to participate unless publishers are first on board.

It’s clear that ad fraud is a real problem and goes beyond just bot fraud and domain spoofing. And it’s one that is exceedingly tough to weed out. Based on our experience, I’m optimistic the industry can at least drastically reduce its occurrence. But this won’t happen until all players in the ecosystem start playing their part.

Follow Business Insider (@businessinsider) and AdExchanger (@adexchanger) on Twitter.

Must Read

How Encryption Keys Could Resolve The TID Furor

Rather than sharing universal TIDs that any DSP or curator can access, Raptive says publishers should instead share encrypted TIDs with an encryption key provided only to trusted demand-side partners.

Clear Channel Brings Mid-Flight Measurement To Its OOH Network

Clear Channel will provide advertisers weekly, mid-flight reports on outcomes driven by its inventory in order to bring OOH measurement closer to the speed of digital.

FTC Commissioner Mark Meador speaking at the NAD's annual conference in Washington, DC on Sept. 16, 2025. (Photo: Brian O'Doherty)

FTC Commissioner Mark Meador: ‘No Human Society Can Long Survive Without Consumer Trust’

Keeping American kids safe in what FTC Commissioner Mark Meador calls “an increasingly complex and fast-paced technological environment” is a top priority for the agency.

Privacy! Commerce! Connected TV! Read all about it. Subscribe to AdExchanger Newsletters
Comic: "Deal ID, please."

Amazon Expands Its Programmatic Integration With SiriusXM

On Tuesday, Amazon DSP announced an expanded integration with satellite radio company SiriusXM.

Rembrand merges with Spaceback

Omar Tawakol Is Merging His AI Startup Rembrand With Spaceback

Rembrand announced that it’s merging with creative automation startup Spaceback to build a unified AI-powered platform for “content-based” CTV, digital video and display.

A comic depicting people in suits setting money on fire as a reference to incrementality: as in, don't set your money on fire!

Retail Media Is Starting To Come To Grips With The Fact That We All Know Nothing

Retail media is entering what might be called its Socratic phase. The closer we to get to understanding an ad campaign’s real impact and business results, the clearer it is that we have no idea how this thing works.