Check My Ads Institute Chief Operating Officer, Arielle Garcia, testified today before the Senate Institutions Committee of the Vermont General Assembly support of S. 71, the Vermont Data Privacy and Online Surveillance Act.
Programmatic advertising has resulted in ubiquitous tracking and widespread sale and leakage of consumer personal data. While this process is marketed as efficient and powerful in theory, the reality is much different. Out of every dollar spent on programmatic advertising, only 36 cents makes it to the publisher. 29 cents of the ad dollar goes to adtech intermediaries, and a whopping 35 cents is wasted on fraud, invalid (e.g. bot) traffic, and low-quality made-for-advertising (“MFA”) websites.
“Without privacy laws like S. 71 that codify transparency and choice, include principles of data minimization, and restrict use of sensitive data, these data-enabled harms will continue unchecked. All of this so that data brokers and adtech companies can sell unsuspecting advertisers data that has less than a 50% chance of being accurate? This is the alleged pinnacle of “efficiency” that props up the industry’s complete disregard for consumer privacy,” said Arielle Garcia.
This false promise of “precision” targeting is not what helps advertisers achieve growth. Nor is it what helps publishers sell ad space for a fair price. It is what the tangled web of middlemen rely upon to substantiate their high margins, selling ad space that otherwise would not sell. It is the illusion that underpins big tech companies’ untouchable supremacy. As AI-generated spam sites take over the web, and ad fraud gets easier and easier to perpetrate, this reality grows all that much more dire.
Check My Ads is working with policymakers across the country and internationally to advocate for transparency and choice for both businesses and the public, as the cornerstones of a fair digital advertising ecosystem.
Watch below to jump directly to Arielle’s testimony in front of the committee:
Or, watch the entire testimony on the Senate Institutions Committee of the Vermont General Assembly’s livestream at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZMPrxi8Xrc