This week's review of ad fraud and quality in the digital advertising space.
In the wake of our MegaCast app ad fraud discovery, we continue to explore the impact of this apparent widespread app laundering and automatic activity. Based on conservative estimates, we believe brands were losing over $75 million per year to this alleged ad fraud activity. Upon further research into the activity, Pixalate was able to identify and verify some of the exact brands that we believe were impacted by this event, including Facebook, Disney, Instagram, Hulu, Volvo, and more. Click here to download our whitepaper or learn more in MediaPost.
According to eMarketer, citing a recent survey from TrustArc and Dimensional Research, "[a]bout a quarter of respondents said their new data policies and procedures and cookie management protocols are fully compliant with the new regulations ... but just 13% said that their vendor risk management programs were GDPR compliant." Working with vendors that are not GDPR compliant could lead to GDPR fines, eMarketer notes. (Note: Pixalate is GDPR compliant.)
"The Interactive Advertising Bureau's Tech Lab on Tuesday revealed details of a Blockchain Working Group pilot program that is designed to answer [how blockchain would be best applied to online advertising]," wrote Advertising Age. "But could it add another so-called ad-tech tax to the equation in the process?" Advertising Age asked, noting that "[s]uch services certainly won't be free."
Salesforce this week agreed to acquire Datorama. AdExchanger wrote of the deal: "Both Salesforce and its competitor Oracle have been on a spree acquiring data companies. Oracle started first, by snapping up BlueKai, AddThis, Datalogix, Moat and Grapeshot, and Salesforce has gone down its own path." AdExchanger added, "While Oracle has a data marketplace and seems to be focusing on data analytics, Salesforce is dead set on managing data integration."
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) recently "took enforcement action to combat the installation of malicious software through online ads for the first time under Canada’s anti-spam law." The CRTC hit two companies with a combined $250,000 in penalties for "allegedly aiding in the installation of malicious computer programs (also known as malware) through the distribution of online advertising."
Sign up for our blog to stay updated with new stats, trends, and analysis of digital ad fraud.
