Nov 6, 2023

OpenWeb's secret relationship with Steve Bannon

Something interesting is going on with OpenWeb.

The ad exchange has built a niche for itself in the advertising business: “saving online conversations” from hate, lies and disinformation. They’ve gone on the record to say that they would never work with Breitbart. And they’ve made a big show of being big on brand safety.

But since at least April, they’ve been monetizing a different Steve Bannon production: Populist Press. And they appear to be doing it under a fake account designed to throw advertisers off the scent.

The ad industry agrees on one thing and one thing only: Steve Bannon is toxic. So what’s the deal between Bannon and OpenWeb?

What happened?

We like to periodically check in on OpenWeb. The ad exchange promises to “solve the toxicity crisis”, but we always find them making money off exactly that.

It’s no different this time. On October 19, we found OpenWeb partnering with a handful of toxic outlets — including EU sanctioned Russian state media. Some of these accounts went live in April 2023, well after the invasion of Ukraine began.

We flagged the following accounts:

• Pravda (SellerID: c95d1d8f09af9fd89e31da8fa114a869)
• Russia Today/RT.com (SellerID:  be4ff89855f9dfd89623ad03c8d36ad0)

We also found OpenWeb accounts for:

• Breitbart (SellerID: ee89c82b03533e7f7cd78999df1cedd5)
• Populist Press (now known as Political Signal)

Following our tweets, OpenWeb dropped Pravda, RT and Breitbart from their inventory by the next business day. But they kept Populist Press.

Now, Populist Press’s ties to Bannon are so clear that it was demonetized by Google in May 2022 following the publication of a ProPublica investigation.

So what made OpenWeb pick it up? Why risk it all for a Bannon production?

OpenWeb might be faking its Bannon account

The answer could be that they hoped nobody would find out.

OpenWeb does not declare their partnership with Populist Press to advertisers in its sellers.json directory, a publicly listed file of publishers that each ad exchange maintains for its clients.

Alternatively, it’s possible that they’re working with the outlet through a falsely labeled account. OpenWeb lists a partnership with Augusta Partners in its AdYouLike inventory (acquired by OpenWeb last year):

Let’s translate this for a second. An honest sellers.json entry will tell you the website and the owner of the site.

This OpenWeb sellers.json entry is nonsense. Augusta Partners does not own ProtonMail. And ProtonMail — a paid email service — doesn’t even run ads.

In the ad industry, this is known as “mislabeling.” A mislabeled account allows you to disguise the true identity of the websites you’re working with. It’s a form of advertiser fraud.

OpenWeb may want advertisers to believe they’re running ads for ProtonMail. However, we think this account may actually belong to “August Partners.”

This would line up with a handful of data points:

• August Partners belongs to the Sheas, Bannon’s “We Build the Wall” initiative partners
• Populist Press began running OpenWeb ads on April 20, 2023 (Note: “Jeeng” is OpenWeb’s email monetization product)
• OpenWeb added the Augusta Partners account to its AdYouLike inventory on April 22, 2023

• Does OpenWeb have an under-the-table partnership with Bannon’s outlet? It’s possible. We’re just glad subscribing to Populist Press’s newsletter for years is finally coming in handy.
• OpenWeb: “Brand safety” will have to wait till next year
• OpenWeb founder and CEO Nadav Shoval has not responded to a request for comment.
• However, OpenWeb quietly published a blog post on Oct. 30: Our Approach to Safety and Content Moderation. It appears to be a response to our findings: they just haven’t gotten around to brand safety yet.
• “We acquired two companies, AdYouLike and Jeeng, to diversify monetization channels for our publisher partners. … With these acquisitions, we are working to apply our Global Publisher and Moderation Policies to the acquired entities.”
• They also say they will begin enforcement of their brand safety agreements across acquired business units by the end of Q2 in 2024. In other words, clients should expect OpenWeb to continue running their ads on toxic and potentially illegal websites for at least the next six months.
• OpenWeb has already owned AdYouLike for over a year. This makes us wonder: Have they only started checking their acquisitions’ inventories because we called them out?
• A short history of OpenWeb’s brand safety
• We have no reason to be optimistic about OpenWeb’s ability to enforce anything. The company has a long history of getting found out (by us) — and scrambling to maintain their marketing facade:
• JULY 2021: We found OpenWeb partnering with numerous sites containing hate, racism and disinformation, including The Post Millennial and Revolver News.
• JULY 2021: Around the same time, the Goldberg told Gizmodo that they declined to partner with Breitbart because it doesn’t meet the platform’s content standards
• AUGUST 2021: OpenWeb announced they were axing 50 toxic sites from their inventory following an internal audit. They said the cuts represented about $500,000 in lost revenue.
• AUGUST 2021: OpenWeb announces they’re joining the WFA’s Global Alliance for Responsible Media, in an effort to play up their commitment to brand safety. They also say they’re partnering with the Global Disinformation Index to proactively identify disinformation in their inventory.
• DECEMBER 2021: OpenWeb announces they’re incorporating Newsguard, a media ratings company, into their inventory quality process.
• APRIL 2022: OpenWeb acquired the ad exchange AdYouLike in a $100 million deal.
• APRIL 2022: We find AdYouLike monetizing Russian propaganda website RT. OpenWeb drops the site from AdYouLike’s inventory
• SEPTEMBER 2022: OpenWeb starts a new active partnership with RT.
• JANUARY 2023: OpenWeb buys Jeeng — a platform that monetizes email newsletters — for $100 million.
• APRIL 2023: OpenWeb adds Breitbart to AdYouLike’s inventory.
• OCTOBER 2023: We find OpenWeb partnering with Pravda, RT, Breitbart, and Populist Press.
• OCTOBER 2023: OpenWeb publishes its blog post on safety and content moderation.

OpenWeb isn’t solving the “crisis of toxicity” anytime soon.

The Action

We shouldn’t have to wait six months for OpenWeb to stop funding a Steve Bannon website. Help us reach out directly to company executives.

Click here to open up an email pre-filled with text to send them, or manually enter the text below:

Email: [email protected], [email protected].

Subject: OpenWeb and Steve Bannon?

Body:

Hi Nadav,

I just learned that OpenWeb is running ads for Steve Bannon-affiliated website Populist Press. This website clearly doesn’t meet your standards. I’m aware that you plan to start reviewing your inventory next year. This means you will be funding Populist Press for at least the next six months.

Is there a reason you can’t review Populist Press and remove it from your inventory now?

Thank you for your time,

[Name]

Let us know if you hear back — and we’ll do the same.