Pesach Lattin is an investigative journalist and the publisher of ADOTAT, where he covers ad tech fraud, programmatic economics and holding company structures. He started out as an investigator, spent two decades building and running ad businesses, and now reads the filings, contracts and invoices the industry hoped nobody would. He hosts The ADOTAT Show. He has retired twice. Neither one stuck. Tips: [email protected] or [email protected] (both reach me), or WhatsApp +1 505 932 9060.
Breaking: Google Certified Discover-Tech for Six Years. Its Ads Hacked Al Jazeera.
Citizen Lab and Confiant reported Thursday that the Israeli DSP ran Candiru spyware through Google, Yandex and Comcast's Beeswax, and lifted logged-in sessions from 1,000 publishers.
Unmeasured: Nielsen Sells DoubleVerify as Independence. Its Contract Lets It Refuse a Firewall.
DoubleVerify's proxy shows Nielsen cut its bid twice, beat a $14.50 offer on speed, and wrote itself the right to turn down behavioral remedies. The vote is October 29.
The Trade Desk and Magnite Sold the Same Independence. Only One Is Repricing Its Options.
Magnite is up 57%. The Trade Desk is down 68%, and on Monday Jeff Green holds 50.2% of the vote on cutting the price of 15.6 million options, 1.6 million of them his.
GumGum Calls Itself The Mindset Company. Katy Loria Has to Make It Pay.
Katy Loria spent 20 years selling screens buyers underrated, from Nickelodeon to movie theaters to FAST. Now she runs global revenue at a contextual company whose founding bet, the death of the cookie, never happened, and she says the proof points are still coming.
Lisa Kopp Johnson Sells DeepIntent as Privacy-First. Its Audience FAQ Still Lists IQVIA.
AdExchanger just named DeepIntent's chief revenue officer a Top Women in Media & Ad Tech honoree for team leadership. Her job is to sell prescription-drug targeting while the FTC, the states and the White House all work over the same market, and the company does its own outcome studies.
Lauren Benedict Sells Roku as TV's Front Door. Fox Is Buying the House for $22 Billion.
Roku's global ad sales chief won Advertising Executive of the Year while her company grew ad revenue 25%. In that same stretch she lost her boss to Paramount, gained a new one from Meta and Snap, and saw Fox agree to buy the company. The study Roku now sells with says 87%. That number deserves more scrutiny than her résumé does.
Rita Ferro Sold Out Disney's First Super Bowl in 20 Years. Its Streaming Ad Rates Are Falling.
A Cuban-American saleswoman from Miami spent 29 years building Disney's ad machine and now runs the busiest live-events calendar in television. The company's own filings show the streaming business she calls the industry leader is selling more ads at lower prices.
Megan Ramm Built Uber's Ad Sales Machine. PubMatic Needs It to Sell Past Three Buyers.
PubMatic's new global chief revenue officer helped take Uber Advertising from a $500 million run rate to more than $2 billion. Now she runs every revenue team at a sell-side platform that names Google and The Trade Desk as its biggest buyers, and whose three largest buyers account for 59% of its receivables.
Mary Ann Belliveau Built Reddit's $1 Billion Sales Machine. Snap Needs Another.
Mary Ann Belliveau has spent 25 years teaching big advertisers to take new platforms seriously, and at Reddit she built the team that did it at a billion-dollar scale. At Snap, she has been handed the one job the company admits in writing it hasn't figured out.
REPORT: Cox Pitched "Reserved" Bulldogs Game Ads. Georgia's Rights Holder Says It Gave No Authorization.
A broadcaster put the Georgia "G" on a proposal selling streaming ads "inside" live Bulldogs games. The school's rights holder says it never signed off. The network that controls the breaks, officially, hasn't said a word. Part two of the Asellus file.
Unmeasured: CIMM Gave TV Currency 18 Months To Get Its Act Together. Including Itself.
The Strong Foundations task force will try to give TV currency's referees real consequences. It has a buy-side bench, no plan to replace anybody, and 18 months to prove it works.
WSJ Asked The ROI Of Brand Raves. It Printed Zero ROI Returns.
The Journal promised to explain why marketers think dance parties pay off, then delivered a party report with no cost, no lift and no return, led by an event from the column's own sponsor. I own pieces of Las Vegas clubs, so this trend is good for me. That's exactly why I'm asking where the number went.
Blackburn and Blumenthal Called It a Crime Pipeline. TAG Says They Skipped the Meeting.
The industry called child sexual abuse material "abhorrent." When ADOTAT asked 23 companies whether blocked sellers still get paid, seventeen left the answer blank.
Amazon Promised Full Control. Its Agent Won't Let You Pick An Audience.
Amazon retired the DSP name, not the DSP. It folded the engine into an AI agent that now picks your channels, your audiences and your bids, then grades the results itself, one month after the FTC accused it of rigging its own auction floor.
REPORT: AdTech Promised Zero Tolerance for CSAM. And Most Did Nothing
In February 2025 the industry was appalled. Nineteen months later, ADOTAT sent twenty-three companies five questions about what changed. Fifteen said nothing at all.
Unmeasured: The JIC Calls It "How a Number Is Made." The 672 Test Results Went To Members.
Last year the JIC told everyone where Comscore, iSpot and VideoAmp fell short. This year it told members. Nielsen also reset Spanish-language TV's denominator and kept its daily streaming data for clients.
Tuesday Thread: Viant Says It Measures The Market. It Won't Say How Much Of Its DirecTV Is DirecTV.
Viant's reps are pitching agencies DirecTV for less than DirecTV charges. DirecTV says that isn't possible. They're both telling the truth, because they aren't selling the same thing.
