Digital advertising is a $700bn (£530bn) industry, but it remains largely unregulated and there are few laws in place to protect brands and consumers. Companies and brands that advertise their products often don’t know which websites are advertising their products. I run Check My Ads, an ad tech watchdog organization that constantly deals with situations where advertisers and the public are victims of lies, fraud, and manipulation. We removed ads from websites that contained significant misinformation about COVID-19, false election content, and even AI-generated obituaries.
Now, when brands want to promote their products, Google makes it easy for them to run ads based on their desired ad reach and metrics. Technically, they may fulfill the contract by delivering views and clicks, but they do not provide transparent data about where and how the ad views came from. That ad may have appeared on an unpleasant website that is antithetical to your brand’s values. For example, in 2024, Google was found to be profiting from placing product ads on websites promoting hardcore pornography, disinformation, and even hate speech, against the wishes of the brand.
However, this scandal will end in 2025 as the first regulations targeting the digital advertising industry begin to be enacted. Around the world, lawmakers in Brussels, Ottawa, Washington and London are already making it easier for brands to access legal support to ask questions, review advertising data and automatically set up legal support if a product turns out to be defective. We are in the early stages of developing regulations to allow people to receive refunds. Digital campaigns are falling victim to fraud and safety breaches.
For example, in Canada, Congress is considering enacting the Online Harms Act, a law that would encourage the removal of sexual content involving minors. The idea behind this law is that if the content is illegal, it should also be illegal to make money from it.
Advocates have also proposed bills in California and New York that would implement know-your-customer laws to track global advertising finance transactions. This is important because these two states support the global ad tech industry. New York has more ad tech companies than any other city in the world. Meanwhile, a transparency law enacted in California will impact the international advertising operations of Google, by far the world’s largest ad tech company.
Beyond brand and consumer issues, the unregulated nature of the digital advertising environment is a direct threat to democracy. In the United States, for example, presidential election spending is virtually unregulated. It is estimated that presidential campaigns will spend up to $2bn (£1.5bn) on digital advertising in 2024. Under current law, external data on reimbursements and fees likely will not be available.
In 2025, there will be legal pressure on big tech companies to regulate advertising technology.
