Preprint
The Inventory is Dark and Full of Misinformation: Understanding the Abuse of Ad Inventory Pooling in the Ad-Tech Supply Chain
ArXiv.org
10/12/2022
Abstract
Ad-tech enables publishers to programmatically sell their ad inventory to
millions of demand partners through a complex supply chain. Bogus or low
quality publishers can exploit the opaque nature of the ad-tech to deceptively
monetize their ad inventory. In this paper, we investigate for the first time
how misinformation sites subvert the ad-tech transparency standards and pool
their ad inventory with unrelated sites to circumvent brand safety protections.
We find that a few major ad exchanges are disproportionately responsible for
the dark pools that are exploited by misinformation websites. We further find
evidence that dark pooling allows misinformation sites to deceptively sell
their ad inventory to reputable brands. We conclude with a discussion of
potential countermeasures such as better vetting of ad exchange partners,
adoption of new ad-tech transparency standards that enable end-to-end
validation of the ad-tech supply chain, as well as widespread deployment of
independent audits like ours.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- The Inventory is Dark and Full of Misinformation: Understanding the Abuse of Ad Inventory Pooling in the Ad-Tech Supply Chain
- Creators
- Yash Vekaria - University of California, DavisRishab Nithyanand - University of IowaZubair Shafiq - University of California, Davis
- Resource Type
- Preprint
- Publication Details
- ArXiv.org
- ISSN
- 2331-8422
- Language
- English
- Date posted
- 10/12/2022
- Academic Unit
- Computer Science; Law Faculty; Public Policy Center (Archive); Center for Social Science Innovation
- Record Identifier
- 9984304059802771
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