At least 18 government websites in the U.K. and the U.S. send visitor information to multiple online advertising brokers, according to a report. This includes an ad-tech business in China previously embroiled in privacy disputes.
Google previously blacklisted Yeahmobi’s SDK as “malicious” following an investigation into ad fraud and attribution abuse, Silent Push stated.
Selling ad space involves finding third parties willing to showcase themselves to the host’s audience. They can sell the space directly to the advertisers or go through an intermediary. Ad.txt files are aimed at combating certain types of ad fraud.
However, in the U.S. through the Registry Team, the Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency (CISA) explicitly forbids the use of .gov websites for any commercial activities that benefit private individuals or entities, including online advertising.
The company said it into any .gov U.S. government domains with the ability to host programmatic ads, and found four domains with an ads.txt file that are potentially in violation of CISA rules:
mcdowellcountywv.gov/ads.txt
fortdeposital.gov/ads.txt
cohassetpolicema.gov/ads.txt
sports.celina-tx.gov/ads.txt
According to their investigation, the first three domains each list only one vendor in their ads.txt file—Google. The site sports.celina-tx.gov, however, lists dozens of partners in its ads.txt file. Although it displays no ads on public pages, the footer suggests it is managed by a vendor named SportsEngine[.]com.
U.K. government sites and ad brokers
However, in the UK, advertising is permitted on .gov.uk websites with certain restrictions. The .gov and .gov.uk sites identified by Silent Push publish an ads.txt file that specifies the companies allowed to automatically sell the site’s ad space to advertisers upon a visitor’s arrival.
A handful of authorities have been identified allegedly using the file including Transport for London, the country’s national weather service the Met Office, as well as various councils around England and Wales.
Silent Push states: “Whilst programmatic advertising is not prohibited on UK council websites, allowing a Chinese ad vendor with a questionable past to collect data on visitors to UK public sector websites is problematic for reasons that are self evident.”
The Council Advertising Network (CAN) is a U.K.-based organization that creates revenue for local authorities throughout the UK by managing digital premium and programmatic advertising on council websites.
CAN oversees the ads.txt files for all the mentioned UK domains. These files contain account IDs confirming that Yeahmobi is authorized to display ads and access visitor data from these domains.
ReadWrite has reached out to the Council Advertising Network for comment.
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