As a follow up to its study which found up to $16.4 billion could be lost to ad fraud in 2017,
The&Partnership is, well, basically demanding that Google, Facebook, et al open up their walled gardens and allow inside
third party purveyors of ad verification solutions such as Adloox, a company The&Partnership partnered with for the study.
The&Partnership argues ad spend lost to ad fraud
could be reduced to single digits if only the giants would allow in solutions such as Adlooz. Currently the big boys don't allow in third party solutions of this type.
Arguing for a
doorway into the walled garden, The&Partnership Founder Johnny Hornby said, "Without this, not only are these platforms denying our clients the clean, brand-safe environments they quite rightly
demand - but
advertisers also lack full transparency and visibility in terms of the money they are losing to fraudulent advertising and advertising that never gets seen. If Google wants to see
advertisers returning to YouTube in significant numbers. it is going to have to move quickly."
Hornby suggests Google needs to do two things, "Firstly, Google needs to stop marking its
own homework, fully opening up its walled gardens to independent, specialist ad verification software, to give brands
the visibility and transparency they deserve. Secondly, Google will need to
start looking at brand safety from completely the other end of the telescope. Instead of allowing huge volumes of content to become ad-enabled every minute, and then endeavoring to convince
advertisers that the dangerous and offensive content among it will be found and weeded out, it should be presenting advertisers only with advertising opportunities that have already been pre-vetted
and found to be 100% safe."
Does anyone think Google is actually going to allow this? Of course, they could just buy Adloox and then there might be some actual headway.
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This reminds me of some types of social activism, often seen in the New York City construction industry.
It went like this: A social-justice organization, or organizer, would choose a construction site, and place picket lines there, accusing the builder, contractor, or union, of discriminatory practices in hiring. They would disrupt the construction and create quite a scene, costing the builder money. After negotiation, these picket lines could be made to go away, if some people were hired, and a nice payment was also made to the organizer.