Officials from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) have held multiple conversations with advertising executives about several brand safety scandals spurred by reports from ad-tech consulting firm Adalytics, Marketing Brew has learned.
In the talks, officials have questioned reports alleging that YouTube inadvertently collected data about children, that Google sold and placed ads that rarely met its own standards, and that Google placed ads on sanctioned Russian and Iranian websites for advertisers, including the U.S. Army, Air. Force, Coast Guard, National Guard and FBI, according to two people who spoke to Marketing Brew on condition of anonymity out of concern for potential professional and personal repercussions.
According to three people, the officials have also asked how advertisers work with ad verification firms Integral Ad Science and DoubleVerify, which sell services that claim to prevent ads from running against offensive content, detect fraud and measure digital ads.
In the talks, officials questioned the effectiveness of these tools and whether there might be a conflict of interest between the verification vendors, their programmatic partners and the advertisers they represent.
Federal agencies, including the Defense Department, spent more than $1.8 billion on advertising in 2023, according to procurement records analyzed by Rebuild Local News.
It is unclear what the exact focus of any investigation is or its scope. In a statement, NCIS spokesman Jeff Houston said that “out of respect for the investigative process, NCIS does not comment on, confirm details of, or confirm the existence of ongoing investigations.”
Jonathan Lee, general counsel at Adalytics, said that “as a matter of course, Adalytics cannot confirm or deny our participation in or the existence of any regulatory, national security or law enforcement investigations.”
Michael Aciman, a Google spokesman, said in a statement that “the Adalytics reports on Google were deeply flawed, filled with exaggerations and reached a number of false conclusions.” Jaime Levitt Corry, a spokesman for Integral Ad Science, declined to comment, but directed Marketing Brew to a previously issued statement disputing a report by Adalytics.
A public affairs officer for the DOJ did not return Marketing Brew’s request for comment. A spokesman for DoubleVerify did not return a request for comment.
Heated seat
The interviews come as regulators continue to scrutinize ad-tech companies for their practices. Last month, the DOJ argued in court that Google monopolized advertising technology in a case that could be settled before the New Year. In August, the tech giant lost its second federal antitrust lawsuit, with a judge ruling that Google has an illegal monopoly on search; officials are weighing a range of remedies, including potentially breaking up some of Google’s businesses.
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Both Integral Ad Science and DoubleVerify have also been thrust into the spotlight through several unflattering Adalytics reports over the years, which have alleged that the companies provided inaccurate metrics to publishers. Adalytic’s latest report, from August, found that many advertisers, including the US Navy, were running ads alongside sexually explicit and racist content, even though many of the ads’ code indicated the use of brand-security vendor technology.
In the company’s blog post, Integral Ad Science said Adalytics used a “flawed methodology” in its August report, while DoubleVerify said “reports like this are misleading because they lack critical details about the featured advertisers’ campaign strategy and setup.” Google has also pushed back on Adalytics’ findings in company blog posts and statements.
Adalytics started as a relatively obscure company led by Franaszek, but it has built a reputation for being a thorn in the side of the ad-tech industry since it began publishing reports on ad tech several years ago. Today, Adalytics’ findings are regularly reported by major publications such as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and Franaszek has appeared at industry conferences to discuss his work.
In the wake of the Analytics reports, some advertisers and publishers have soured on brand safety tools.
“Advertisers hired ad verification companies thinking they would act continuously to update their capabilities,” Lou Paskalis, a marketing consultant and former president and COO of industry group MMA Global, told Marketing Brew. “Neither the agencies nor the ad verification companies are developing their capabilities as quickly as they should.”
In recent years, ad verification and brand safety companies have also come under fire amid right-wing efforts, led by X owner Elon Musk, to delegitimize the brand safety industry, which Musk has described as an “advertising boycott racket.”
In August, X CEO Linda Yaccarino sent an open letter to advertisers informing them that the platform had sued a collection of advertisers as well as the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) and the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA), accusing them of ” unlawful conduct.”
GARM was disbanded several days later.