Comment by greg_V
7 months ago
The 2010-2013 timeline was also when the problem of ad fraud exploded. Google even acquired a company (or multiple, if I recon correctly: https://www.ft.com/content/352c7d8e-9acc-11e3-946b-00144feab... ). You had these companies popping up left and right that were snooping on Google and the emerging programmatic advertising environment to see if the websites and the traffic delivered were legit, and there were some scary numbers flying around.
The whole problem kind of got swept under the rug with most advertising ecosystems implementing a checkbox solution for clean traffic, and the web turned mobile user first.
My impression is that ad fraud never disappeared - it just got sanitized and rolled in with the other parts of the ad stack.
Exactly.
How much of (online) advertising is legit? Does any one know?
What would a "healthy" ad ecosystem look like? What should the the FTC (and advertisers) be working towards?
Eliminate any potential conflicts of interest? Bust up vertical integration (eg search & ads must remain separate companies)? Independent verification, as best able (eg like Nielsen does for ratings)?
Or maybe we determine (digital) ads based biz models are irredeemable, and we figure something else out.