TAG Partners Promote Industry Progress

In old Western movies, a lone cowboy would ride into a corrupt and dangerous mining town and – with a quick wit and faster six-shooter – clean it up singlehandedly by the end of the film. Unfortunately, the real world isn’t so simple, and the desperadoes and outlaws in the digital advertising space are often massive and well-funded criminal organizations that make billions of dollars from fraud, malware, piracy, and lack of transparency. 

That’s why TAG has focused on building coalitions of industry leaders to tackle these tough endemic problems, including a board of directors and leadership council that include many of the largest and most influential companies and trade organizations in our space. We’ve also assembled working groups focused on our core objectives that include representatives from nearly 140 companies working cooperatively on these challenges.

In short, our success as an industry will be driven by our partners’ success in advancing key TAG initiatives, which is why I am so pleased at the raft of partner announcements over recent weeks in areas ranging from DAAP validation to leadership on payment ID solutions and collaboration with key government agencies.

Since January, TAG’s anti-piracy program has moved into full public deployment, as several important TAG partners – including comScore, DoubleVerify, Incopro, Integral Ad Science, and sovrn – have announced that they have completed the third-party audit process to provide TAG-validated anti-piracy services, driving press coverage and rising public awareness of their services. Other companies, including Veri-Site and whiteBULLET, are on track to make similar announcements soon.

One of those companies, sovrn, has also announced an effort to advance our “Verified by TAG” initiative through a new publisher ID functionality that will inform and advance our work on an industry-wide Payment ID solution.

And, highlighting the key role that government and law enforcement will play in the effort to fight online crime, we were pleased last week to announce a new relationship with a key agency of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). To launch that relationship, TAG recently held a roundtable to set common priorities and evaluate opportunities for collaboration with officials from DHS’s National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, as well as the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

All of these advancing fronts show how the industry can tackle these tough problems by working together, sharing best practices, adopting common standards, and increasing transparency in the advertising supply chain. To help new potential partners understand the issues we’re facing, and become part of the solution, we’ve put together a brief video on our “Verified by TAG” initiative. Please feel free to watch and share it.

Thank you for your continued engagement and collaboration as we work to fight crime and improve transparency in the digital advertising supply chain. Your support is the reason we are beginning to turn the tide.

Mike Zaneis, CEO, Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG)