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DoubleVerify updates its URL-reporting tools in wake of Adalytics report

DoubleVerify is rolling out URL-level reporting capabilities to all advertisers amid widespread calls for more transparency in the programmatic supply chain. While the company says it already offers URL reporting as part of its brand-safety verification services, the update opens more comprehensive data to all its advertisers, giving them a clearer view of where their ads are running. The move will also extend URL-level data later this year to third-party platforms, “where advertisers can integrate their own data and apply advanced analytics for even richer insights.” The changes arrive in the wake of a Feb. 7 Adalytics report that found some of the biggest ad tech vendors, like Amazon and Google, had served digital ads from major brands on a website hosting child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Further, Adalytics said it observed DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science (IAS) measuring or monitoring ads on explicit pages for major brands. An IAS spokesperson tells The Current that it offers URL-level reporting to customers using its Brand Suitability technology on content it deems “unsafe or unsuitable for measurement.” “The definition of ‘brand suitability’ is defined by each customer,” the spokesperson added. “Full URL reporting has been available since 2021, and we are continuing to drive adoption to support our customers with this level of transparency.”  The report sparked discourse around the role of brand-safety verifiers, and the need for more URL-level transparency across ad tech. Advertisers often only see the domains where their ads are being served, not individual pages. “I don’t think it’s acceptable for any advertiser to not know where their ads are running, period,” Robert Leathern, founder of Trust2 Consulting and a former product executive at Google, told The Current. Adalytics told The Current soon after the report was released that “several Fortune 500 advertisers” had requested or planned to request that Google and Amazon provide full URLs for pages where their ads are served. In response, Amazon vowed to update URL transparency and reporting. Industry insiders haven’t just demanded more transparency from ad tech vendors – they've publicly and privately called on trade bodies to address the report, including several sources who spoke with The Current. In a recent post, IAB Tech Lab COO and EVP of product Shailley Singh urged the industry to “step up,” but appeared to concede that trade bodies could take on too much legal risk if acting as enforcers. “The enforcement role has its own liability and tort issues, as evidenced by the ongoing X vs. GARM lawsuit, and it’s easy for an industry to ask an independent body to enforce rules when all the liability is on the enforcer,” Singh wrote. 

Illustration by Robyn Phelps / Shutterstock / The Current

DoubleVerify is rolling out URL-level reporting capabilities to all advertisers amid widespread calls for more transparency in the programmatic supply chain.

While the company says it already offers URL reporting as part of its brand-safety verification services, the update opens more comprehensive data to all its advertisers, giving them a clearer view of where their ads are running.

The move will also extend URL-level data later this year to third-party platforms, “where advertisers can integrate their own data and apply advanced analytics for even richer insights.”

The changes arrive in the wake of a Feb. 7 Adalytics report that found some of the biggest ad tech vendors, like Amazon and Google, had allegedly served digital ads from major brands on a website hosting child sexual abuse material (CSAM).

Further, Adalytics said it observed DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science (IAS) measuring or monitoring ads on explicit pages for major brands.

An IAS spokesperson tells The Current that it offers URL-level reporting to customers using its Brand Suitability technology on content it deems “unsafe or unsuitable for measurement.”

“The definition of ‘brand suitability’ is defined by each customer,” the spokesperson added. “Full URL reporting has been available since 2021, and we are continuing to drive adoption to support our customers with this level of transparency.” 

The report sparked discourse around the role of brand-safety verifiers, and the need for more URL-level transparency across ad tech. Advertisers often only see the domains where their ads are being served, not individual pages.

“I don’t think it’s acceptable for any advertiser to not know where their ads are running, period,” Robert Leathern, founder of Trust2 Consulting and a former product executive at Google, told The Current.

Adalytics told The Current soon after the report was released that “several Fortune 500 advertisers” had requested or planned to request that Google and Amazon provide full URLs for pages where their ads are served.

In response, Amazon vowed to update URL transparency and reporting.

Industry insiders haven’t just demanded more transparency from ad tech vendors – they've publicly and privately called on trade bodies to address the report, including several sources who spoke with The Current.

In a recent post, IAB Tech Lab COO and EVP of product Shailley Singh urged the industry to “step up,” but appeared to concede that trade bodies could take on too much legal risk if acting as enforcers.

“The enforcement role has its own liability and tort issues, as evidenced by the ongoing X vs. GARM lawsuit, and it’s easy for an industry to ask an independent body to enforce rules when all the liability is on the enforcer,” Singh wrote.