• Business Insider, Wednesday, March 29, 2017 9:09 AM

More troubles for Rubicon Project. The Guardian is preparing to file suit against the ad-tech firm, alleging it didn't disclose fees it charged advertisers looking to buy the newspaper's online ad inventory, according to a Business Insider (BI) report. BI said the paper confirmed that it's begun the process for "the recovery of non-disclosed buyer fees in relation of Guardian inventory." A Rubicon spokesperson provided BI with a statement explaining that the company's buyer fees "are disclosed, including in a contract it signed with The Guardian and also in its SEC filings."

A Rubicon spokesman supplied a statement to Real-Time Daiiy that said: "We charge buyer fees for certain services we provide and have disclosed that fact publicly, including in our SEC filings, and in client contracts, including a contract we signed with Guardian over a year ago. We split our fees between sellers and buyers, reflecting the value we provide to both.Rubicon will go to court to defend itself against the newspaper company's suit. Our marketplace fees on transactions support the considerable and compounding costs of performing an open auction – including our extensive brand protection and inventory quality screening, and malware protection. As we add new buyers and sellers onto the platform, the resulting impact is compounding infrastructure costs. Without buyer fees we would need to charge sellers more, and we think our approach is fair."

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