Alex Goldman

Why would anyone pay to place their ads on these sites?

And what we learned is they don't.

The way the digital advertising system is set up makes it very difficult for advertisers to know where their ads are ending up.

And this AI obituary scam and so much of the fake news and health hoaxes and extremism that we see online are all downstream effects of this reality.

So before reporting back to Marcus, we wanted to find out what can be done to change the system.

And look, I'm not going to lie to you.

There are a lot of people who say that there's actually nothing we can do.

And the people saying this aren't just podcasters and doomsayers.

These are people who actually study this stuff.

They say that the issues we see in the ad tech space are built into the Internet itself.

And if we wanted to fix them, we'd have to tear the whole thing down and rebuild it from scratch.

But thankfully, we spoke to one person who does not agree with that sentiment.

Look, I know it may seem like we just chose to end the story with the one optimist in the digital advertising space.

But honestly, everyone we spoke to told us that we had to talk to Claire.

They told us Claire and her colleagues know more about this issue and this ecosystem than anyone else out there.

And that's partially because they used to be a part of it.

And was there like a catalyzing moment or an event that made you go, you know what?

The world needs an organization that's policing this and giving consumers information about what's happening online.

Since the founding of Check My Ads in 2021, they've been running investigations on the digital ad space, pressuring the industry to set standards and enforce them, and working with lawmakers to shape legislation aimed at keeping your data out of the hands of advertisers and making sites that profit from fake obits and fake news just a little bit harder to profit from.

And one of the things that they've learned is that we already have the technology to fix the digital ad exchange.