Justin Scarborough’s Post

Marty Swant of Digiday published a piece about DoubleVerify's new report about how generative AI is increasing the prevalence of ad fraud and MFA. I was asked for, and provided comment. DoubleVerify apparently didn't like it. They seemingly demanded that Digiday remove the quote and issue a correction. I've included my now-removed comments in the screenshot below. I believe that they provide context and balance, which in my view has always been a cornerstone of Marty's coverage over the years. It seems that what DV was hoping for was a puff-piece - #Cannes fodder. It is disturbing to see the growing trend of companies making retraction demands or threatening legal action when they are unhappy with coverage (e.g. https://lnkd.in/eGMXsg7d, https://lnkd.in/e7mTnW6i). The industry, its shareholders and stakeholders are incredibly fortunate to have a strong trade press, dedicated to providing real coverage of substantive issues. In a complex, largely unregulated $700B industry - one that sits at the intersection of tech and society - the trade press operates as one of very, very few accountability mechanisms. The chilling effect these intimidation tactics have is painful to watch, and bad for all of us. In my view, these demands reflect far more poorly on the companies that make them than 'unfavorable' coverage ever could. We cannot allow this harmful precedent to stick. Let's start by making it so that DoubleVerify doesn't get their way, by making sure as many people as possible see the original piece that Marty wrote, in full. You should decide for yourself if it warranted a "correction" or "retraction" demand from DoubleVerify, and whether my comments were "unsubstantiated." 1. Original article that Digiday published, my comments included: https://lnkd.in/eYeXwv-B 2. The article now, post-tantrum: https://lnkd.in/erVXPq8N ------------------------ Update 1: I have edited this post per Seb Joseph's note, as I have received slightly different explanations for why the quote was removed. This does not change my perspective on the disturbing trend of issuing retraction demands and the chilling effect it has. Update 2: Following the above, I reached out for additional perspective from journalists and editors. I've included in the comments the perspective of a veteran editor on appropriate course of action. This aligns with the POVs shared by the other journalists that I have spoken to about this, each of which have covered third party verification vendors before. All suggested that they might have issued an update to add additional comments from DV; but would not have removed the quote or issued a correction. This raises more questions for me about what DoubleVerify said, threatened, or demanded, and on what grounds. #adtech #accountability #transparency #ethics

Huge congrats to Shelby Currie & Yu Kuang for becoming TikTok Certified media buyers! 👏👏 Moroch was selected as an elite group of agencies for the beta test and this exclusive certification positions them as leaders in the ever-evolving TikTok ad space.

We cannot resign ourselves to the status quo, Check My Ads Institute's Arielle Garcia argues during a super spicy session at AdExchanger #ProgIO. Why are we waiting for 3rd-party cookie deprecation? We are not bound to big tech's vision of digital advertising. That's a repeated theme throughout, with tons of hard truths dropped like a-bombs. Publishers are being extorted and advertisers are being mislead... because big tech has too much power. Because of opacity and misaligned incentives. Programmatic was supposed to be a way to more efficiently connect demand and supply. But what happened? We had to track consumers all the time... and we lost the plot: you can't build a relationship with consumers through coercion. The industry pumps out research saying consumers love surveillance advertising! This is garbage—particularly because on top of being invasive, audience is often inaccurate and useless. Arielle looked at the audience segments she falls in... And they're not only inaccurate, they're contradictory. (This is the same as the old BlueKai registry—I used to tell people to go to that to see the ridiculous assertions.) Walled garden audience data is bad too! "Kennedy Space Center is a targetable segment?" "Better data" doesn't fix bad incentives, but it's a great cover for monetizing garbage. And I'll (Gavin) add here—monetizing garbage is about artificially deflating ECPMs to make advertisers think they got more bang for their buck. MRC has become a protection racket, rubber-stamping certifications for verification. We have gotten to the point where the quality of services/product is inversely related to their value to consumers. Worse products, worse solutions, more money, shareholders clap (What Ed Zitron calls the Rot Economy, or the "enshitification model."). Incentive structures need to be reset before we get to a brighter future. Advertisers must demand transparency, log-level data, close contract loopholes and understand vendor agreements, and FAILURE MUST HAVE CONSEQUENCES. Agencies must be held accountable for failing to meet standards. PRIORITIZE QUALITY. Do the math—quality is pricier for a reason. Advocating against privacy is not beneficial for the ad industry.