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It's hard to overstate how INCREDIBLY fked up this is in so many ways. 1: Brand safety vendors are deep in controversy about the illegitimacy of their classification. These are the same companies that block diverse needed coverage w/little justification morningbrew.com/marketing/stories/2022/03/10/publishers-say-brand-safety-companies-selling-contextual-ad-tools-are-scraping-their-data-unfairly
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2: They are overstepping their contractual limits w/the publishers they are running on and selling keyvalues behind their back on non-transparent server platforms allowing them to take an extra cut out of ad bidding transactions that they have done zero work to actually justify.
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3: In a just world, this would be an INSTANT SEC case. The company that you've employed to block ads from appearing for specific reasons, is now turning around and deciding to push specific ads to you based off of another side of their operation? A *huge* conflict of interest...
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There's literally *nothing* that stops IAS from emitting a brand-unsafe signal on a publisher page and then ignoring it to favor only their own bidding process to get on to the page, giving them a bigger cut of the pie and driving down the CPMs on that publisher...
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There's no other way to describe this than setting up a specific situation in which the brand safety vendor is not just incentivized to not do their job (at which they are already doubtfully effective) but incentivized to actively screw over both buyer and seller...
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This is a *fundamental betrayal* of their role in the ad tech ecosystem as /supposedly/ neutral arbitrators and guaranteers of safety for both sides. It's exactly like as if your bank was paid by your for a mortgage AND paid a bounty every time it bankrupted you...
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Let me be clear the worst part of this is how incredibly cruel & exploitative this is of publishers over whom they have incredible leverage as agents of buyers *who this action would fundamentally not benefit* b/c the buyer would pay more to be party to new targeting terms. ..
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These "media quality" cos are forced on publishers b/c buyers do not trust publishers to provide accurate metrics or brand safety signals (which is a dumb position, but convo for another time). Publishers who want to sell their inventory cannot say no to implementing IAS...
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These companies are already fundamentally a shakedown of publishers w/questionable effectiveness or utility beyond providing buyers a safety blanked and now they have the *absolute gall* to turn around and betray the guarantee of their product... Chronotope/1501598870622687235
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It's hard to imagine a more fundamentally questionable action on behalf of these companies and it shouldn't be just on publishers to object. Buyers should see who is doing this, see their best interests are not at the heart of the equation, and withdraw their use.
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As always, "how low can you go" is a game it is impossible to win in ad tech. Chronotope/1340354219635838984
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This is so incredibly infuriating.
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More reading on IAS btw: checkmyads.org/branded/inside-the-chaos-of-brand-safety/
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If you're asking... isn't the whole point of a brand safety company to act ethically, boy do I have *all* of ad tech to explain, but *also* they are so lacking in transparency they refuse to show visibility into what they're doing for brand safety! - Chronotope/1301622302891802624
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Also... these brand safety companies are *already* terrible at their jobs with the sort of consistency that should cause buyers to question of what value they are - Chronotope/1047561129172586496
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If you're wondering how easy it would be for brand safety companies to hide bad behavior if they wanted to act against *literally all* of their clients' best interests... it would be very easy because the way they function is insane and lacks transparency Chronotope/1238209870987497474
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Ad tech is capitalism on nightmare mode and every time you read something you should assume that everyone involved who has an incentive to act badly and the capacity to avoid any form of transparency, oversight, or auditing, WILL do so because that will almost always be the case.
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Usually when a vendor goes to a publisher to shake them down for money by forcing an analytics package on them that they have aggressively convinced buyers is required they at least have the grace not to rub salt in the wound of publisher powerlessness in the equation.
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IAS just managing to squeeze in the last few points to maximize their scumlord counter. Yeah I bet they didn't have a comment... because there's no defense for acting that terribly. Chronotope/1078018209536708609