WASHINGTON, D.C. – April 1, 2025 — The digital ad market is rigged—and Congress knows it. On March 13, 2025, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) reintroduced the bipartisan AMERICA Act to break up entrenched power, eliminate conflicts of interest, and bring long-overdue transparency to the heart of the internet economy. With support from Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Eric Schmitt (R-MO), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Peter Welch (D-VT), and Cory Booker (D-NJ), this bill sends a powerful message: the era of unchecked ad tech dominance must end.
The AMERICA Act is a much-needed course correction—and we at Check My Ads Institute enthusiastically endorse it.
For too long, a handful of dominant platforms have acted as broker, exchange, and referee in the $700 billion digital advertising marketplace—rigging auctions, exploiting conflicts of interest, and siphoning away value from both advertisers and publishers. This bill is the first real step toward restoring fairness, accountability, and a functioning free market for digital advertising.
According to multiple studies, more than 50% of every ad dollar never reaches the publisher, instead being swallowed by opaque ad-tech intermediaries. And as the Department of Justice has pointed out, a single ad impression may pass through as many as 20 different vendors, each taking a cut—without any meaningful oversight.
This is not capitalism. This is not competition. This is not innovation.
The AMERICA Act brings common-sense, bipartisan reform to the digital ad ecosystem—banning the most egregious self-dealing practices, restoring transparency, and leveling the playing field for innovation and independent media. It would require companies transacting over $20 billion in digital ads annually to divest parts of their business and prohibit them from operating on both sides of the market—just like we don’t allow a Wall Street broker to own the exchange and bet against their own clients.
Whether you’re a mom and pop business fighting to reach customers, a publisher fighting to survive, or a citizen fighting for a fair digital future—this legislation is your fight too.
“For too long, advertisers and publishers have been caught in a rigged system—squeezed by powerful middlemen who profit from every transaction while keeping everyone else in the dark,” said Sarah Kay Wiley, Director of Policy at Check My Ads Institute. “Conflicts of interest run rampant, ad dollars vanish into black boxes, and the people creating value are left with scraps. The AMERICA Act is a long-overdue fix—restoring transparency, eliminating self-dealing, and ensuring that every dollar spent actually reaches its intended destination.”
“For years, Google has had the unchecked power to unilaterally write the rules and dictate the norms of the digital ad industry. By manipulating ad auction dynamics, exerting power over industry standard-setting, and dangling incentive deals under the noses of ad agencies, Google has wielded its dominance to keep the bar low – to normalize opacity and legitimize conflicts of interest to the detriment of advertisers, publishers, and users alike,” stated Check My Ads Chief Operating Officer, Arielle Garcia. “The AMERICA Act is a crucial step toward creating a transparent and fair digital ad market, and restoring competition and innovation that is good for everyone.”
It’s time to end the era of platform privilege and restore the free, open, and fair market principles that make the internet—and America—thrive.
We support the AMERICA Act. Because the referee shouldn’t own the team.
###
About Check My Ads Institute
Check My Ads Institute, the digital advertising watchdog, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit established in 2021 to build a better internet business model for advertisers, publishers and people. We shine a light on the opaque global advertising technology industry, which has enabled systemic manipulation and fraud, through unfettered access to its vast infrastructure: ads, advertiser budgets and our own intimate personal information. The unregulated transfer of power takes place largely outside the view of advertisers, regulators, and citizens. Check My Ads is pushing for accountability in the digital advertising industry through consumer-informed, free-market solutions and common-sense state, federal, and international regulation. We believe that advertisers and the public deserve transparency and choice.