Agencies Perpetuate Underhanded Online Advertising

Underscore Marketing CEO Tom Hespos writes a thoughtful and detailed article outlining how agencies are creating the very thing they claim to have no part of: malicious and underhanded placement of advertising on consumer's computers. Referred to as Malware, this software causes much of the agonizing "advertising attacks" many users experience while online. Much of the advertising that makes it to Malware is supplied by the blind media buy. This is a buy made by buyers through lead generation companies where an agreed upon number of leads are guaranteed but the sites on which the ads will appear remains secret. The advertiser nor the agency knows where all the ads will appear. This practice allows the lead generation company free reign over the tactics it uses to obtain those leads. Hespos explains most of the ads placed through blind buys end up on sites no reputable advertiser would ever want to appear. By allowing these blind buys to occur, the ad industry itself perpetuates the existence of malicious malware (and other forms of online crap-ware) which so completely debilitate a user's online experience that it threatens to shut down the entire online advertising medium.

Hespos also offers suggestions on how our industry can work towards crapping on the crapware vendors, leaving them high and dry and the online advertising industry in much better shape.