Major brands are funding disinformation domains

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The GDI estimates that a quarter billion dollars (US$235 million) is paid annually to our database of 20,000 disinformation sites by ad tech companies placing adverts for many well-known brands. These brands include household names that many of us know: Audi and Honda, American Airlines and OfficeMax, among others. The sites in our sample include www.addictinginfo.com, www.rt.com, www.twitchy.com and www.zerohedge.com.

This happens because much of online advertising is now placed “programmatically” (i.e. by computers). Every time we load a web page an instant auction happens to sell off the advertising space to the highest (computer) bidder. The GDI has explained how this system works in a white paper that we published in May.

Programmatic advertising is a fast and easy way to target potential customers but brands too often have no clear information about the sites where their adverts wind up. This means that brands discover only after the fact that their adverts have appeared next to very “brand unsafe” content. And currently there is little brands, or the ad tech companies that support them, can do to prevent this outcome.

This is a whole-of-industry problem that requires a whole-of-industry solution. And it must start with the ad tech companies.

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