More on Ben Edelman and Network Inter-Trading
June 28th, 2006
ClickZ reported on a new study by Ben Edelman that details how pornographic ads can pop up where they shouldn’t:
The “Spyware Showing Unrequested Sexually-Explicit Images” report details the sometimes labyrinthine trails of intermediaries interacting as user traffic is handed down from one server to another, sometimes resulting in a multitude of pop-ups, many, in these cases, displaying graphic images that would make some users blush.
This is clearly a serious problem in the industry (we discussed it previously here). It’s also a good opportunity to clarify the role of the Right Media Exchange (or any other open marketplace), and the value that role brings.
The open exchange (and its underlying platform, Yield Manager) provides an environment for advertisers, publishers and networks to do business with each other with greater efficiency. A big part of that is simply sheer access to media — having open access to that much supply and demand precludes the need for networks to trade with each other to increase scale.
Another one of the biggest benefits of the exchange is that it gives its buyers and sellers the opportunity to form solid partnerships — to find the right partner, connect directly, do their due diligence and agree on the clear terms of their relationship. While there is regulation in the exchange, specifically with the coming Media Guard product, Right Media and/or Yield Manager stays out of the way of that direct relationship. That sort of control — specifically in this case, to determine what sort of content is mutually acceptable to each side — belongs to the buyer and seller.
Making that direct connection in the exchange cuts down that “labyrinthine trail” of middlemen and leaves little chance of the unfortunate surprises described by Mr. Edelman. Moreover, with fewer intermediaries to take a cut of a transaction, it leaves the seller with more revenue, and the buyer with greater purchasing power.
March 15th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
[…] When we talked about this before, we concentrated on clarifying our role in the market — providing an open environment for buyers and sellers to trade more directly and with greater visibility — and how that will help cut down a lot of the tangle that comes with network inter-trading. That said, we’ve also talked a lot about the systems we’ve put in place, into which we’ve poured a tremendous amount of resources, to proactively combat problems like those Edelman describes. Our Creative Tester system, for example, puts ads in the Right Media Exchange through a multi-step scrutiny to catch any creatives with unsavory characteristics. We described in detail how that system and our auditors’ diligence stopped a new technique that spawns pop-ups out of banners. […]