Griffith University blames Google and media agency Ikon after ads appear on piracy sites
Griffith University has said Google and its agency Ikon Communications are at fault after its ads appeared on unlicensed content streaming sites.
In addition to the Australian university, Mumbrella Asia reports other brands appearing on the website included Singtel, Procter & Gamble, POSB Bank and Toyota.
It once again shines a light on programmatic buying and whether media agencies have adequate blacklists for clients.
Last year, Mumbrella revealed how a number of major Australian advertisers had been advertising on websites associated with a piracy site called Watchseries, one of a plethora of global piracy portals funnelling consumers to unlicensed content and making millions of dollars from display advertising in the process.
This time around the brands and their agencies have been running banner ads on sites that unlawfully stream live sports events, torrent site VIP League and Bestfreestreaminghq.com, a search engine for links to streamed content.
In a statement Griffith University, which targets potential students in Asia, described the placement of its ads on a sports streaming site as “disappointing”.
The Queensland-based university pointed out that the responsibility for online ad placement lies with its media agency Ikon Communications and also Google, as it uses the internet giant’s ad display network.
In a statement, the university said:
On behalf of Griffith University, Ikon communications agency takes responsibility for the environments in which advertising is placed. All precautions are taken to ensure that the brand remains on reputable websites, and the agency deploys multiple layers of targeting in attempts to prevent occurrences like these. Priority is placed on avoiding unsavoury sites and content above that of buying efficiencies and/or effectiveness.
It is disappointing to learn that, despite the brand safety measures and due diligence deployed as standard, Griffith University’s ad has appeared on this site. The website in question is a part of the Google Display Network and it is the responsibility of Google to ensure the content they run our ads against is legal and brand safe.
Now that this ad placement has been brought to our attention, we have blocked this specific site and engaged with Google to understand how this has occurred and what further technologies will be implemented to avoid this situation taking place in the future.
In response a Google Australia spokesperson said: “We have systems in place to make sure ads show only on websites that meet our policies, and we quickly remove sites that violate these policies.”
Comment has also been sought from Ikon Communications.
Programmatic buying and the appearance of ads on undesirable sites through Google Adwords has occurred previously with a number of major Australian brands caught running ads on a white supremacist website. The ads appeared after the online behemoth’s ad technology systems failed to pick up the error back in April.
In many cases, ads have been placed in several iframes in order to disguise where it was being placed, in a tactic referred to as “adnesting”.
The tactic basically sees a brand buy space on one website but then find it is paying to appear on another, often illegal or unsafe website.
An iframe is a basic building block of web design, and works as a shell which allows a webpage to be embedded inside another website.
Adnesting allows people to mask the true location of where an ad is being served, while for consumers the ad appears to have been legitimately placed.
Click here to read the full Mumbrella Asia story.
Robin Hicks and Nic Christensen
I think it’s great alignment, majority of people on those streaming sites are probably within their target demo…
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I do not believe the agency can be held accountable. It should be the network / dsp.
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Thanks Perez Hilton aka Mumbrella. How about you start reporting on all the other businesses eg. Telstra for one also appearing in the same environments?
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Stray ads appearing on illicit websites has to be one of the silliest issues we’ve ever worried about this industry. We know that none of the viewers care (if they found piracy objectionable they wouldn’t be on the site in the first place), rather, it’s all about protecting brands from ‘gotcha’ moments like these, which misinform people about how online advertising actually works.
As for the ethics of paying a dodgy publisher, display ad revenue is so miniscule these days you could hardly argue that Griffith Uni is supporting the site. If we educated people about how online ads are targeted, instead of brewing controversy, advertisers might consciously leave these sites in their network and at least have the opportunity to bring users to the legitimate side of the web.
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Hi Papparazi,
From your IP address it looks like you may not be an impartial party here?
Cheers,
Alex – editor, Mumbrella
Wow Alex getting a little defensive? Don’t you have sensational headlines to write?
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Good old Mumbrella pulling out the IPN. Surely that is a breach of privacy to indicate where the person is located?
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Nothing to do with the agency.
More to do with Google marking their own homework.
Also agree that this is such a insignificant issue within the broader industry – but I guess it’s easy to fit in a tweet vs. explaining how ad-fraud works.
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Think folk are being a little naive here. It’s not insignificant according to USA IAB honcho was just out here.
People who run these sites are stealing content to make a buck and if you’re advertising on such sites you’re funding their activities.
Without being alarmist, ad fraud has been linked to organised crime and other organisations major brands would rather not be associated with.
Prolly best not to be there i reckon.
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Does rather show that Ikon has zero targeting ability though? No?
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No-one on piracy sites is seeing display ads because they’re generally savvy enough to have installed an ad block. (And not one of those dodgy white-list for profit things, a good one like UblockOrigin.)
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Well said Lachlan Wells.
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Display is ad revenue is minuscule ??
Fact Check : Display still largest category in digital media.
http://www.journalism.org/2015.....act-sheet/
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Fair point Spiffy, to clarify I meant the revenue the individual piracy site would earn from Griffith is probably very small.
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Hey MumBrella, if you wanna pull out IP addys to shame agencies defending themselves, make sure to pull out IPs from competing agencies trying to sink the boot too.
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Hi Stevo,
We regularly do that where they are traceable – these aren’t it seems.
Cheers,
Alex, editor, Mumbrella
‘…the legitimate side of the web….’
Ad-speak at its finest. File sharing (piracy) IS the legitimate side of the web. That’s what the internet does, copy files. (That’s pretty much all it does actually.)
It’s the data-retention, tracking, privacy destroying, malware ridden ads that form some of the worst aspects of today’s internet.
Forcing artificial scarcity on infinitely copy-able products and ideas is about as illegitimate as it gets. Like demanding cars drive at 5kph because they’re threatening your horse and carriage business (true story).
The future will laugh at stupid concepts like attempting to stop everyone using a new technology to its potential because it threatens your ancient business model.
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