• by Wayne Friedman , February 23, 2022

To reduce advertising fraud in the connected TV (CTV) and streaming businesses, Roku is starting up a new free technology, Roku Advertising Watermark, to help advertisers and publishers verify the authenticity of their video advertisements.

Roku’s Advertising Watermark will integrate with the Roku operating system to automatically verify publisher ad requests and impressions so advertisers know they are reaching real Roku users.

This will defend against “device spoofing” occurs when scammers pretend a desktop or mobile device is a TV streaming device. Still, Roku notes ad spoofing in TV streaming remains rare. It says the technology deters bad actors and improve ad effectiveness.

Roku says the technology will be used on TV advertising sellers' inventory including Discovery, Fox Television Network, and other channels.

Roku’s own demand-side platform OneView will be the first ad-buying platform to offer ad inventory with the validated watermark technology.

In addition, Roku says other ad-technology companies will integrate Roku’s Advertising Watermark, including Basis Technologies, Google, Human, Innovid, and supply-side platform Magnite.