How Publishers are Getting Fooled by Ads.txt Fraud

Now that ads.txt is gaining traction, it is inevitably running into kerfuffles.

Publishers say that third-party sellers like Thrive+, Ludius Media and SelectMedia asked to be listed on their ads.txt files, even though the publishers did not have direct relationships with these companies. These vendors say they were merely trying to approach new business partners or form direct relationships with publishers whose inventory they were already reselling. In response to reporting on this subject, the politics publisher Salon removed Thrive+’s name from its ads.txt file, SpotX and LKQD terminated their relationship with the reseller, and OpenX sent an email out to its publisher clients that called the whole thing a “scam.”

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