Big brands are not used to having their advertisements posted on pages containing sexually explicit or illegal material, but that's exactly what's happening on the Web, says
The Wall Street
Journal, which singles out Verizon Communications, Walt Disney Co., and Monster.com for unknowingly placing ads alongside questionable content. After finding out, all three yanked their ads. Of
course, large Web advertisers aren't always privy to where their messages end up because of the way ads for smaller sites are sold through middlemen, who themselves don't closely monitor where they're
posted. Offline, advertisers and their agencies can make lists of shows and certain sensitive topics they don't want their ads to appear next to. Online, the story is obviously different. Aside from
advertising directly with the likes of Google, AOL, Yahoo and MSN, advertisers and agencies turn to ad networks to buy cheap spots across a wide range of sites. Often, not enough is known about each
publisher for advertisers to ban their ads from certain sites. Or, worse, the
Journal says, some publishers sign up to these networks using false names and then place ads on sites containing
risqué content--which can bring in a great deal more traffic. Complicating matters further are ad networks that buy groups of ads from other networks. Said one Carat Fusion exec: "I wish... there
was a fail-safe program to make sure it wouldn't happen, but it's not there yet. It's like losing luggage."
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