Brand Safety

ADOTAT's reporting on brand safety and verification: what IAS, DoubleVerify and the rest promise, and what advertisers actually get.

All Posts

Breaking: Google Certified Discover-Tech for Six Years. Its Ads Hacked Al Jazeera.

Privacy

Oct 15, 2026

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.

Pesach Lattin

IAS and DoubleVerify Sell Independence. Neither Sale Needed Your Signature.

Nielsen

Oct 15, 2026

IAS and DoubleVerify Sell Independence. Neither Sale Needed Your Signature.

Six questions for your verification vendor before renewal, the dodge you'll get, and the clauses that make the answers stick.

Pesach Lattin

IAS Sells Independence. Its $1 Billion Loan Gets Paid Out of Client Fees.

Investors

Oct 12, 2026

IAS Sells Independence. Its $1 Billion Loan Gets Paid Out of Client Fees.

The referee brands pay to keep the ad market honest was bought with debt the loan market wouldn't touch. Its only rival just sold to Nielsen.

Pesach Lattin

Blackburn and Blumenthal Called It a Crime Pipeline. TAG Says They Skipped the Meeting.

Child Safety

Oct 1, 2026

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.

The Adotat Staff, +1

Field Kit

Sep 30, 2026

Thursday Field Kit: Zeta Says It Claws Back CSAM Money. Your Contract Doesn't Say You Can.

The industry called child sexual abuse material "abhorrent." When ADOTAT asked 23 companies whether blocked sellers still get paid, seventeen left the answer blank.

The Adotat Staff

Adtech

Sep 30, 2026

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.

Pesach Lattin

Unmeasured: Zefr Says It's MRC Accredited. For One Platform, Not Two.

MRC

Aug 19, 2026

Unmeasured: Zefr Says It's MRC Accredited. For One Platform, Not Two.

The company confirmed the gap on the record. Its marketing hasn't caught up.

Pesach Lattin

The Moat Guy Built an Ad Nobody Can See, and Perplexity Saw It Anyway

Adtech

Aug 13, 2026

The Moat Guy Built an Ad Nobody Can See, and Perplexity Saw It Anyway

The CEO who built Moat's reputation on independent measurement is now asking to be trusted on his own.

Pesach Lattin

MRC Has Never Accredited a Company in Its Life

Adtech

Aug 12, 2026

MRC Has Never Accredited a Company in Its Life

No, they are NOT MRC Accredited. Not Zefr. Not iSpot. Not DoubleVerify. Not anybody. The sentence everyone puts on slide three of the deck describes a thing that does not exist.

Pesach Lattin

Perplexity Docked Time's Trust Score. It Won't Say For What.

Brand Safety

Aug 11, 2026

Perplexity Docked Time's Trust Score. It Won't Say For What.

robots.txt was a text file anyone could open. Its replacement is a private grade with no syllabus, no appeal, and no email address.

Pesach Lattin

Nielsen

Aug 7, 2026

Nielsen Didn't Buy a Verification Company. It Bought a Tag That's Already on the Page.

$2.15 billion buys the company that tells you whether the impressions under Nielsen's currency were real. The word "independent" appears nine times in the press release. That is not a defense. That is a tell.

Pesach Lattin