DigitasLBi global chief media officer Baba Shetty is leaving the agency to start his own company called Invisible Science, a research and advisory firm focused on programmatic marketing, according to a report in Adweek. The venture will launch on June 1. Shetty says his new firm will run as a subscription-based membership service and will offer objective, programmatic research for brand leaders. Shetty plans to offer insights and advice for brands looking to find the best technologies for their businesses.

Digital audio inventory is playing a growing role in marketers' media plans and it's increasingly available for programmatic purchase, AdExchanger reports. Still audio publishers are wary of placing their inventory into an open exchange and advertisers are trying to figure out how programmatic audio fits into their paid media plans. The ecosystem consists of iHeartRadio (mostly direct-sold inventory), with some inventory available through private exchanges; Spotify, which has a private marketplace and has opened up new data segments to improve targeting; and Pandora, which handles programmatic display buys. Spotify, Google Play and Pandora declined to speak with AdExchanger. In addition …

MediaMath is restructuring internally and replacing its single product architecture with a new sales and engineering organization that's built around enterprise software and services, according to a report in AdExchanger. One big change is that the ad-tech firm will create product business units (PBUs) in which MediaMath employees are not only responsible for building the product, but for implementing it. MediaMath began reorganizing a year ago, refocusing its engineering team around specific products. The company laid off an unspecified number of employees -- said to be in the “low-to-mid single digits."

Ad-tech firm Yieldbot named Chris Copeland to the post of president. Copeland was most recently chief digital officer at WPP's GroupM Next, which focuses on media buying on emerging digital platforms. Yieldbot aims to help Web publishers use data to sell more-targeted ads.  Yieldbot works with Meredith Corp., Condé Nast, Vox Media, Time Inc. and Hearst Corp., among others.

An interesting read by a former New York Times executive. Writing in the Harvard Business Review, John Geraci, the former director of new digital products at the New York Times, Geraci praises the Times for bringing in “entrepreneurial employees” to help build revenue-driving products. But, he argues, the initiative ultimately failed because the paper lacked what he refers to as “the Ecosystem Mindset.” The Times thinks of itself as self-sustaining -- that all of the resources it needs to thrive are available in-house. Not so, Geraci argues.

Another bidder for Yahoo's assets has emerged: The U.K.’s Daily Mail joins a big group of interested companies set to bid on the company's assets by the April 18 deadline, according to the Wall Street Journal. "Given the success of DailyMail.com and Elite Daily, we have been in discussions with a number of parties who are potential bidders,” a spokesperson for DailyMail.com told the Journal. Discussions are at a very early stage, and “further updates will be provided as appropriate,” the spokesperson said.

An eMarketer article reports that while nearly two-thirds of "bad bots" globally behave like bots, about 40% are able to mimic human behavior, according to 2015 research by Distil Networks. The bot detection and mitigation services provider looked at data from its network including 74 billion bad bot threats as well as so-called "good bots" and human traffic. The company looked at the share of bad bots that copied human behavior, and those able to load external assets like JavaScript files. The research found that 53% of bad bots were able to do so, and will wind up being attributed …

Business Insider reports that newspaper publishers including Dow Jones, The Washington Post, and The New York Times Co. have co-signed what they are calling a "cease and desist" letter sent to ex-Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich. His new browser, Brave, available on iOS, Android, OS X, Windows, and Linux, has ad-blocking software integrated into it. BI says "The software blocks all ads by default and replaces them with its own ads that it says load quicker and 'protect data sovereignty [and] anonymity' of users by blocking tracking pixels and cookies."

Ad fraud is a major issue for advertisers and the entire media ecoystem. Are such guarantees enough? AdAge reports on two programmatic firms, DataXu and TubeMogul, that are offering refunds for fraudulent impressions when they added up to more than 3%. "The moves come as ad sellers in other media have taken to using ad fraud as a cudgel against their online rivals. Last fall, the Outdoor Advertising Association of America ran a campaign during Advertising Week in Manhattan that used billboards and trucks with messages directly attacking ad fraud. The campaign led to a 6% sales boost for out-of-home …

Bloomberg reports that Verizon will make a first-round bid for Yahoo Inc.’s Web business next week, and is willing to acquire the company’s Yahoo Japan Corp. stake to help sweeten the offer, according to people familiar with the matter. Meanwhile, Google, the main division of Alphabet Inc., is also considering bidding for Yahoo’s core business. Potential suitors AT&T Inc. and Comcast have decided against bidding, and Microsoft Corp., which failed with a hostile bid for Yahoo in 2008, won’t bid this time, according to people familiar with the matter.  Time Inc. is still evaluating a bid, while private equity funds …