THE ECONOMICCOST OF KEYWORDBLACKLISTS FORONLINE PUBLISHERSUPDATED
WITH
COVID 19DATA

T

Since the first version of this study was published, the world of
online news publishing has faced an unprecedented challenge. The
economic impact of keyword blacklisting set out in our first editionof this study has been exacerbated, in a way no-one could haveenvisaged, through a news cycle dominated by COVID 19. Despite
record traffic for news stories during this pandemic, brand safety is
preventing ads from appearing next to stories mentioning keywords
such as “virus” “Coronavirus” or “COVID19”. This revised edition
includes new figures on the economic cost of this specific and systemic
keyword blacklisting.
Following this general analysis, we delve into the wider problems
caused by the continuing dominance of blunt brand safety efforts andits impact on the online economy. This sets out that online publishers
face a hotbed of challenges in funding news. Rising pressures include
economic instability; competition from giant tech companies, andthousands of layoffs across digital media. This comes at the same timeas the industry has witnessed only a small rise in the number of people
paying for news1. What is clear is that the challenge of COVID 19 has
hastened the need to adopt clearer brand safety measures for the
long-term survival of the online news ecosystem.

1

The Drum: 4 surprising media trends from the Reuters Institute Digital News Report

2 KEYWORD BLACKLISTS FOR ONLINE PUBLISHERSREVISED EDITION MAY 2020

This study commissioned by CHEQ and undertaken with the Merrick Schoolof Business at the University of Baltimore analyzes the revenue lost fromsafe, blocked, inventory through keyword blacklists. The following section is
updated with specific information on the estimated costs of blocking online
advertising next to Coronavirus stories on brand safety grounds. The effect of
this blocking has damaged the revenues of online news sites across the world.
It has united advertising leading advertising bodies and online publishers
in the call for smarter brand safety as COVID continues to dominate news
coverage. Reuters CEO Michael Friedenberg spoke for many when he said:"Factual news coverage on the global pandemic is essential and must be
supported. It is incumbent upon the ad tech and verification industry to ensurethat trusted news from reputable sources about Covid-19 is not blockedby safety filters." In the UK, culture secretary Oliver Dowden pleaded withmarketers to rethink coronavirus keyword blocking, He said:“I am asking companies and the advertising industry to act and do all they canto resolve this issue,” urging them to review their policies and check they are
not “inappropriately” blocking ads from appearing next to the news providing
a vital public service.”

METHODOLOGYCOVID19 will generate at least one-third of page views for news sites
between February 2020 and June 2020. 1In 80% of cases, keyword blocking
is used, by brand safety is preventing ads from appearing next to stories
mentioning keywords such as “virus” “Coronavirus” or “COVID19”.
These figures are generated by applying this loss as a percentage of theonline ad revenue for news sites. The analysis is based on 2019 online
news revenue for these countries and assuming that COVID 19 continues
to make up at least one-third of news page views until June.
Based on Chartbeat data showing that COVID19 news stories make up one-thirdof page views, based on an analysis of 26 million articles

1

3 KEYWORD BLACKLISTS FOR ONLINE PUBLISHERS

THE ECONOMICCOSTS OFBLACKLISTSDURING COVID 19

FINDINGS: COST OF
COVID BLACKLISTING
In the period from February to June 2020, the revenue loss breaks down to $1.3
billion for US news sites. In the UK, online news sites are set to lose $105 million due
to Coronavirus blacklists (£86 million); Japanese news sites will lose $47.4 million (5.1billion Yen) and Australian online news publishers will see a $42 million revenue loss($66.7million AUS).

The use of AI-based brand safety for brands is likely to allow vastlymore ads on
COVID inventory. CHEQ, which uses AI rather than keyword blacklists for brand safety
advertising verification has found that in fact, around 60% of Coronavirus blocked
stories are considered brand-safe for most advertisers. This would include stories
such as USA Today (“Let’s Give thanks to Tom Hanks: Watch his 10 Essential Feelgood roles”), because of mention of Hanks contracting the virus). The vast majority
of top inventory about COVID 19 stories involve topics such as economic strategy,
movie and book recommendations, tips for home working, and the global search fora vaccination, which are blocked by blanket keyword blocking. CHEQ’s Health andDiseases category has been trained on more than 20,000 sources of data including
news, and medical research and journals like such as Science, Nature, and, as welldiscussions forums for diseases to ensure accurate filtration of disease content.
This is distinguished from other classifications such as "death", or "movies andentertainment".

ECONOMIC IMPACT OF COVID19 KEYWORDBLOCKING ON ONLINE NEWS PUBLISHERS,FEBRUARY TO JUNE 2020
COUNTRY

ANNUALREVENUE FOR
ONLINE ADSMONTHLY
REVENUEMONTHLY
LOSS

5-MONTHBLACKLIST LOSSUSA

$12 billion$1 billion$264 million$1.3 billionUK$955 million$79.5 million$21 million$105 millionJapan$431 million$35.9 million$9.4 million$47.4 million

Australia$382 million$31.8 million$8.4 million$42 million

4 KEYWORD BLACKLISTS FOR ONLINE PUBLISHERSUSE OF AI IN CORONAVIRUS BRAND SAFETYBrand Safety describes the controls thatadvertisers employ to protect their brands
against negative impacts to their reputation
associated with specific types of content
and related loss of return on investment4.
The principal protection offered by firstgeneration brand safety solutions topolice brand safety incidents have been
"keyword blacklists". These lists according
to publishers have grown to up to 3000
words. One ad verification company alone
has blocked 9.8 billion ad impressions in asingle year using this technology.
Publishers themselves permit the use of
keywords. The UK’s FT.com, in its brandsafety guidelines, offers that "buyers
can provide FT with their own keyword
blocklists to run against their campaigns."
News Corp Australia alerts advertisers to"the ability to suppress advertising against
an agreed list of keywords that may appear
within the content on the page or that thevideo is tagged for."4

However, publishers have complained that
this blunt approach denies ad dollars to newssites—with multiple campaigns blocked oftenwith no explanation. The complaints about
overblocking occur as such keywords failto understand context or nuance. Standard
keywords used across industry standard
blacklists list words such as “kill” “death”“injury” or “sex” end up pulling over safe
stories that mention that LeBron James ‘killedIt’, or the “death” of a character in a Gameof Thrones review. The mere mention ofcertain words instantly blocks ad dollars topublishers. LGBT publishers are hit hardest
by the technology with Pink News citing theinclusion of certain keywords in blacklists,such as ‘lesbian’ a "death sentence" for theiradvertising revenue.

Brand safety reached fever pitch almost three years ago when The Times in the UK exposed how well-known

brands were funding terrorism through adverts that appeared on YouTube videos posted by Islamic extremists.
Such brand safety incidents have continued to appear periodically such as brands appearing next to stories suchas the Christchurch massacre in New Zealand.

5 KEYWORD BLACKLISTS FOR ONLINE PUBLISHERS

THE ECONOMICLOSSES OF KEYWORDBLACKLISTS: THE
ANNUAL COSTS FOR
PUBLISHERS

In our analysis to determine the annual
cost of the problem, researchersdetermined that 80% of ads served onpremium news sites are subject to keyword
blacklists. Through extensive analysis,
researchers discovered that around 40% of
global premium media inventory is brandsafe — that is neutral or uncontroversial
content, not in contravention of leading
advertisers’ brand safety guidelines.
Nevertheless, the study found that, of thissafe content, 57% of neutral or positive
articles are being incorrectly blocked by
keywords5.
The economic loss calculation involves
applying the 57% rate of blocking against
the 40% of brand safe inventory acrossonline news media. This, in turn is set
against the 80% of online new media
inventory governed by blacklists. The final
loss is calculated as a percentage of theonline ad revenue for news sites.

5

CHEQ: How Keyword Blacklists are Killing Reach andMonetization https://www.cheq.ai/Keyword-Study

This level of over blocking, and subsequentloss in revenues, is also corroborated bydata and estimates supplied by publishers
who consistently discover incorrect blocking
affecting up to 60% of their safe inventory.
While unable to quantify the exact amount ofloss, most report the figure to be "very high"and a "highly significant." On an individual
campaign level, executives claim they canlose between 10% and 30% of ad revenue in asingle campaign. Some are much higher — forLGBT sites, the number of safe articles blockedrose to 73% due to the widespread presenceof words such as "same sex" or "lesbian" onblocklists.
In this report, CHEQ also reviews the top
trending stories of 2019 on Google in eachof our countries, generating billions ofimpressions to news sites analyzed against
industry standard keywords to reflect the size ofthe problem. Some 55% of consumers accessnews through Google, social media, or news
aggregators6 but keyword blacklists blocked
the top safe stories of the year, including the
Rugby World Cup, and Avengers. This madesuch topics off limits for advertisers bleeding
publishers of essential revenue on their mosttrafficked stories.

6 KEYWORD BLACKLISTS FOR ONLINE PUBLISHERSMETHODOLOGY

$2.8 billion loss
from blacklists

2.8 BILLION$12 billion digitalnews advertising

12 BILLION$130 billion annual
digital advertising spent

US news publishers are losing $2.8 billion
each year due to the incorrect keyword
flagging of their online content by brandsafety tools. This amounts to publishers
losing out on nearly one in every four
dollars of potential programmatic adrevenue.
This economic loss is based on current
online spending for US online news of $12
billion annually7. This comprises two main
forms of advertising: digital consumer
magazine advertising ($6.6 billion) and $5.4
billion for digital newspapers including
titles such as the New York Times andWashington Post ($5.4 billion).

7

130 BILLION

The importance of programmatic ad revenue
in the US is rising in comparison to print ad
revenue. For instance, The New York Times
recently saw digital advertising revenues($103 million), surpass print ($88 million),
as it achieved $709 million in overall digitalrevenues. Given the importance of these
programmatic ad revenues, all news sites
have suffered from the blacklisting challenge.
Guthrie C. Collin, chief analytics officer at Dow
Jones says a standard keyword blacklist blocks
advertising on up to 20% of the site’s content.
Collin says: “ [The journalists] could write
something like, ‘death to the earnings of...’or ‘it’s killing their margin’ and that would beblocked."PWC Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2019-2023

7 KEYWORD BLACKLISTS FOR ONLINE PUBLISHERS

THE US$2.8 BILLION EACH YEAR
LOST DUE TO INCORRECTBLOCKING OF SAFE CONTENTON PREMIUM NEWS SITES.

CASE STUDY:DISNEY PLUS
STORIES BLOCKED

8

Data on social shares from buzzsumo.com

8 KEYWORD BLACKLISTS FOR ONLINE PUBLISHERS

The most-searched phrase on
Google in 2019 in the UnitedStates was “Disney Plus”, however
the most-read news sites stories
about the new streaming site, were
unmonetizable. The most read article
on the service, Disney+ Complete
List In Alphabetical Order!, shared
459,000 times on social media8, frompublisher Just Disney, a media site
powered by Disney fans, was flagged
for a brief mention of Star Wars Attackof the Clones (keyword: "attack").
One of the other most-read posts,
CNET’s "Everything to know about
Disney’s new streaming service" wasshuttered because of the word "adult"(the offending sentence: "Hulu is
where Disney’s more adult content ishoused").

The issue is highlighted by the fact thatof the 100 most read News articles fromThe New York Times in 2019, only 9 wereconsidered brand safe by keywords
blacklists effectively killing monetization.
While some of their most-read articles
most read are rightly blocked — several
shootings, and the scandal of Jeffrey
Epstein, other pieces of journalism starvedof monetization are baffling choices. For
instance journalist Kevin Roose’s story
about his detox from his mobile phoneis blocked for the keyword of "alcohol" (Unlike alcohol or opioids, phones aren’t anaddictive substance so much as a specieslevel environmental shock"). No less thanfour entertainment stories featuring intheir vaunted top 100, were blocked. This
includes these blacklist offenders: "The50 Best Movies on Netflix Right now"
(blocked for mention of "sexuality": 1967’s
Bonnie and Clyde "mixes sexuality, danger,
restlessness and ennui"); "10 Recent
Netflix Originals worth your time" (blocked
for "sex"); a review of Game of Thrones(blocked for "death") and a review of The

Science stories are also victimized —including the first ever image of a blackhole (blocked for "violent" ("There, a blackhole several billion times more massive
than the sun is unleashing a violent jet ofenergy some 5,000 light-years into space").
The keyword of "slavery" also blocked
ad revenue: this included a travel story
mentioning Williamsburg, known for thearrival of the "first African slaves to North
America"; a story about the Duchess of
Sussex, Meghan Markle’s giving birth to ababy boy ("The entry of Meghan Markle,
the descendant of plantation slaves, into
the royal family resonated deeply withmany people of African descent") and an
in-depth investigation into 400 years ofAmerican slavery. The blocking of LGBTQ
news is also evident: the story about
Jonathan Van Ness of TV show, Queer Eye,was deemed unmonetizable through the
deployment of any number of common
industry-standard keywords including"HIV", "same-sex" and "sexual".

9 KEYWORD BLACKLISTS FOR ONLINE PUBLISHERSONLY 9 OF 100 OF THE NEWYORK TIMES' 2019 MOST-READ
ARTICLES WERE BRAND SAFEUK NEWS SITES LOSE $220
MILLION (£167 MILLION) IN
REVENUE FROM INCORRECTKEYWORD BLOCKING$220 million
blocked$989 million digitalnews advertising

In the UK, the cost to news sites fromoverblocking was $220 million (£167 million)
in 2019. This is based on annual brandspend on online digital news in 2019 of$989 million (£758 million). The Advertising
Association found that total internet
advertising grew to £11.5bn but a small
proportion went to online news. National
news brands picking up £275m in digitaladvertising, regional news brands £212m
and magazine brands, £271m9. Overall,more than one in every five dollars of ad
revenue is lost by UK news sites because ofincorrectly blocked keywords.
Discussing the daily struggle against
keywords, one national UK newspaper site
publisher explained: “We have had times in
the past when block rates are high and theclients have turned around and said they
are not going to rebook, or where we have
had to refund them.

220 MILLION

989 MILLION"We recently had a campaign running thatflagged 40% of impressions (on all inventory)
that day as unsafe. We published an article on
how the Chernobyl disaster zone is becoming asanctuary for wildlife, which was being blocked
because it had the word ‘disaster’ in it.”James Wildman, CEO of Hearst UK publisherof Cosmopolitan, adds: "We are getting
blocked for keywords like ‘shoot’. We write
about photo shoots constantly. The word
‘Manchester’ still gets blocked, as they
[advertisers] haven’t updated their blocklists[since the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017].
We are doing quite a bit of work to shine alight on how crazy it is."https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/uk-advertising-spend-grew-to-record-22bn-in2017-as-duopoly-prosper-and-newsbrands-are-squeezed

910 KEYWORD BLACKLISTS FOR ONLINE PUBLISHERSUKIn the UK, the most searched phrase on
Google in 2019 was the Rugby World Cup(it was the second most popular Google
search in Australia, and third in Japan).
However, two of the top five most read UK
news articles about the tournament were
blocked on brand safety grounds. This
bled ad revenue for stories which together
generated 273,000 social media shares
among rugby fans. The first article, fromLad Bible ("England Are In The Final Of
The Rugby World Cup" )protected brands from the word "attack".
Coach [Eddie] Jones was quoted as saying: " Ithought when we had opportunities to attack,
we attacked well." The second most popular
UK news article on the tournament, (The
Daily Mail’s "England players refuse to put onrunner-up medals after heavy Rugby World
Cup final defeat") was blocked because of thepresence of the word "injury" ("Prop Sinckler replaced after two minutes with a head injury,
ripped his [runners-up medal] straight away").

11 KEYWORD BLACKLISTS FOR ONLINE PUBLISHERS

CASE STUDY UK:
RUGBY WORLDCUP BLOCKEDJAPAN

JAPANESE PUBLISHERSLOSING $98 MILLION IN
REVENUE FROM BLACKLISTSIn Japan, the world’s third largest advertising market (behind the US and China) losses fromblacklist blocking stands at $98 million (¥10.6 billion yen). This is based on online digital news
spend of $431.5 million (¥ 46.9 billion yen), estimated by leading Japanese agency, Dentsu.

$431.5 million digitalnews advertising

98 MILLION

431.5 MILLION

12 KEYWORD BLACKLISTS FOR ONLINE PUBLISHERS$98 million
blockedBrand safety blacklists naturally include
words in all languages, including Japanese.
However, to give the example of English
content blocked, Japan Times, thecountry’s largest and oldest Englishlanguage daily newspaper, two of thecountry’s most popular sports — sumo
and baseball — are regularly blocked
programmatically by blunt brand safety.
For instance, legendary sumo veteranAminishiki is deemed unmonetizable
because of the keyword, "injury".

(“[Aminishiki] called it a day early in thetournament after an injury-forced withdrawal
meant that he would have dropped out of
the salaried ranks”). On the same news site,another sports article was blocked for "shots".
In this case, the Nishinomiya Storks baseballteam's new coach, is considered unsafe by
first-generation brand safety for letting it be
known that the new appointment, Christos
Marmarinos would be "calling the shots".

13 KEYWORD BLACKLISTS FOR ONLINE PUBLISHERS

BRAND SAFETYBLOCKING SUMOAND BASEBALLAUSTRALIAIn Australia the revenue cost of blacklists amounted to $84 million annually ($122 million
AUS). This is based on digital news advertising spend of $382 million ($559 AUS)10. Overall,
one in every five dollars of ad revenue is lost by news sites because of incorrectly blocked
keywords.

$382 million digitalnews advertising

10

DPwC Entertainment and Media Trends: Australia

84 MILLION

382 MILLION

14 KEYWORD BLACKLISTS FOR ONLINE PUBLISHERS$84 million
blockedThe blacklists denied advertising dollars to
many popular entertainment stories read byengaged Australians. The country’s fourthmost-searched trend searched trend on
Google in 2019 was “Thanos”, a characterfrom the Avengers movies, while thefifth-most searched term was “Avengers:
Endgame”. Both of these armies were
ultimately defeated by keyword blacklists.
For instance, one of ABCNet’s popular
articles (“The Timeline leading up to
Avengers Endgame”)

was shared 3000 times on social media, butultimately was blocked for mentioning a New
York "attack” against the character Tony
Stark in Iron Man 3. In another primer article,
by News.com.au, an article providing an
explanation of time-travelling mechanics inthe superhero movie was caught in the brandsafety net for using the word “kill” (“Thanos
wouldn’t be on the Asgardian refugee ship tokill Heimdall and Loki, or sacrifice Gamora on
Vormir”).

15 KEYWORD BLACKLISTS FOR ONLINE PUBLISHERS

CASE STUDY:AVENGERSENDGAME

KEYWORDBLOCKING:
A CLASSIC
EXTERNALITY
In economic terms, brand safety blocklists are an example of unintended economic
consequences known as "negative externalities". In 1920, Arthur Pigou introduced thisconcept in The Economics of Welfare, using the example of alcohol which produces
economic impact, including adding costs for police and health care systems.

Negative externalities costs affecting a party that did not choose to incur it11.
This theory also points out that negative externalities suggest market failure. Like inour case of keyword blocking, market failure is defined as an inefficient distributionof goods and services in the free market, where individual incentives for rational
behavior do not lead to rational outcomes for the group.

INDIRECT COSTSOF BLACKLISTS
So far, we have discussed direct economic costs of the blacklist problem. This addresses the
direct revenue lost by publishers. In contrast, indirect costs are the opportunity costs andless tangible effects of harm. These include executive time spent dealing with a situation,
unintended consequences, or chilling of innovation. The economic consequences of
blacklists satisfy many of these definitions.

11

Externality: James M. Buchanan and Wm. Craig Stubblebine

16 KEYWORD BLACKLISTS FOR ONLINE PUBLISHERS

MARKET FAILURESEXECUTIVES LOSE VALUABLE TIMEDEALING WITH THE CHALLENGE
The amount of executive time spent cannot
be underestimated in the battle against
blacklists representating a large indirect
cost. Kelly Facer, Vice President of Revenue
Operations, Sightline Media, the world’s
largest publisher of military, defense news
and history sites, says that her fight against
blacklists is a time-consuming “daily

She says: "We continuously have to seek
exceptions to the rule. It is just a guessing
game about what could be going wrong
and why we cannot figure out delivery until
someone chooses to disclose."

The keyword-first approach is also causing a chilling of innovation, forcing publishers to findother sources of revenue. In particular, LGBT publications have had to turn to non-advertisingchannels after being frozen out by blacklists. The challenge issue is growing—the Association
for Online Publishing found 88% of news publishers have escalated non-advertising growth as
a top priority.

CHANGING JOURNALISTIC QUALITY
It is also hurting the ultimate product ofnews, changing the focus on independence
and quality. Bedir Aydemir Head ofAudience and Data, Commercial at NewsUK, publisher of The Times and The Sun,says: "We would never let advertising
impact how we write about something. But
for some smaller publishers I am hearingthat they are completely changing the way

in their articles to try and circumnavigate thesevery blunt blocking tools."This frightening
scenario of undermining independentjournalism represents an unknown anddisturbing economic development. This trend
is likely to have a significant impact on the
reputation, quality and premium nature of theonline news ecosystem.

VERIFICATION SLOWING SITESOther unknown indirect costs include complaints that keyword blocking brand safety tags
are slowing sites. Used as part of keyword technology, such wrappers add between two
and four seconds load time, at a time when Google reports that 53% of people will leave amobile page if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load.

17 KEYWORD BLACKLISTS FOR ONLINE PUBLISHERS

PUBLISHERS FORCED TO FIND ALTERNATIVE
AND LESS PREDICTABLE REVENUELOSS OF REACH FOR BRANDS
In addition, blacklists can harm their openly
stated strategic or economic advertisingstrategies. For instance, more than 100 brands
paid to collaborate with the hit HBO show,
Game of Thrones, yet at the same time, 66%
of online news articles about the hit show were
blocked from serving on reviews and articles
about the hit show (due to the presence ofwords such as "death", "sex" and "bastards").
In another instance publisher, Hearst saythat Meghan Markle, is regularly flagged byblacklists. This is because her title, (Duchessof Sussex) contains the word “sex". Onceagain, this occurs despite association withthe princess, in many cases, causing a brand’s
turnover to double.

SOCIETAL DAMAGE: LGBTQ+ NEWS PUBLISHERS
FACING STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL
Equally less easy to gauge economically is
the societal damage caused by defunding
news, particularly hurting minority groups.
LGBTQ+ publishers see nearly threequarters (73%) of neutral or positive LGBT
online news incorrectly flagged by brandsafety blacklists denying them vital adrevenue. Orlando Reece, CEO of PrideMedia, which owns LGBTQ+ site, The
Advocate, says: "In the end, blacklists hurt
us all. We create content from an LGBTQ+
lens

and use words that our community, as
well as the general community, do notfind offensive, such as ‘lesbian,’ and‘queer'. These words are part of our lives
and how we communicate and identify
with one another. Brand safety needs
to be a conversation involving people,
not technology that is ill-equipped fortoday’s digital publishing landscape."
Michael Weaver, Senior VP of Business
Development and Growth at Al Jazeera
Media, adds that the economic impactof blacklists is “large”. He warns: “Thepreventing of ads next to hard news could

18 KEYWORD BLACKLISTS FOR ONLINE PUBLISHERS

Indirect costs are also borne by brands
themselves. In particular rigid and unfair
keyword blocking has seen brands edged
away from engaged news audiences. One
analysis found that ads in quality news
environments are 42% more effective
for advertisers based on engagement,
viewability and dwell time. The race tobrand safety could see brands appear
on less credible news sites with poor, or
irrelevant, content.
In the words of Washington Post, CRO Joy
Robins: “Ultimately, all these brand safetyor keyword blocklists are going to do is
end up putting advertisers who want toreach a B2B audience or the sophisticatedaudiences that are news consumers, andput them in places that are sports, orentertainment which isn’t necessarily thetype of alignment they are looking for.”CONCLUSION
It will be fascinating to see the effectthat this is having with deep contextual
understanding replacing keywords,
promising the return of brands to
news. It comes as some brands seeking
better advertising outcomes, and moreengagement in the causes their consumers
care about, are slowly turning the taps backon news site advertising. In one example,
Bank of America committed 30% of its
entire digital budget to news advertising at
the same time as gearing its brand safety
towards next-generation protection.
Regardless of the approach taken, any
strategy must understand the deep
economic importance of well-functioning
publishers, and the impact of denying themrevenue, particularly in an untransparent
fashion. The modern brand safety approach
must evolve to ensure stringent protection
for advertisers, while seeking to maintain andrestore the role of online news publishers as
a democratic and economic force.

19 KEYWORD BLACKLISTS FOR ONLINE PUBLISHERS

Despite our findings, the use of blunt
keywords is increasing. One ad verification
provider has said that last year alone they
saw a 250% increase in blocking. They
added that keyword use has seen a 10%
annual increase in the number of clientsthat use the feature. In addition, 43 percent
of media buyers say they now explicitly
avoid advertising next to the news, despite
publishers investing heavily in brand safety
policies.
Furthermore, the lack of transparency
evident in decision-making remains achallenge with parties having little accessto why large swathes of inventory are being
blocked. Information asymmetry (whenparties do not have access to the same
information) has been shown to underpin
the most inefficient markets (including thechallenge of ad fraud) and acts as a barrier
to reform.
More positively, better technology,
particularly the use of AI which understands
the context of content on news sites, has