Digital advertising watchdog, Check My Ads, submits comments in response to the MRC’s Auction Transparency Standards
Washington, D.C. – Check My Ads Institute has submitted formal comments on the Media Rating Council’s (MRC) proposed Digital Advertising Auction Transparency Standards, warning that the draft framework would codify unequal standards for transparency and further entrench conflicts of interest within the MRC’s governance model.
“The MRC’s proposal risks making opacity the standard,” said Arielle Garcia, Chief Operating Officer. “By implicitly legitimizing less transparency from Google, Meta, and Amazon, while allowing their trade association partners to write the rules, this framework deepens the very harms it claims to solve.”
Check My Ads’ submission highlights that the MRC’s Steer Team for the initiative includes organizations that derive revenue from the same Big Tech firms likely to seek accreditation. This undermines independence and seemingly cuts against the spirit of the MRC’s own Voluntary Code of Conduct, which historically prohibited accredited measurement services from also holding voting power within the Council.
Check My Ads calls on MRC to:
- Update and publish its by-laws and code of conduct to mitigate conflicts of interest.
- Seek a Business Review Letter from the U.S. Department of Justice before finalizing the standards, given the significant departure from MRC’s historical remit of only accrediting “measurement services” for certain metrics.
- Ensure that companies that do not receive revenue from big tech companies are represented in the Steer Team and accreditation committees.
“When those being accredited are writing the rules, independence is a fiction,” said Iesha White, Director of Intelligence.
Check My Ads further found that the proposal fails to incorporate enforcement mechanisms, and is comprised largely of voluntary provisions which are inherently unenforceable.
Read MRC Auction Transparency Standards
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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.