Alex Goldman

But then I learned that in 2021, both Pfizer and the CDC discovered they'd been running ads on COVID conspiracy sites.

So, yeah, I believe.

Anyway, in the wake of these discoveries, these big, powerful companies started grappling with the fact that this system they'd put so much faith in might not be working exactly the way they'd hoped it would.

But when they asked how in the world could this happen, the answer wasn't super clear.

So the publisher, that's the webpage, will put up space for sale in this auction.

And advertisers will bid for the privilege of putting their ad in front of your eyes when the page loads.

And by the time the page is finished loading and the ad appears, the auction's already over.

So because this whole thing happened so quickly, it has to be automated.

If this were a real auction block, there'd be a buyer on one side and a seller on the other, and there'd be a guy in the middle brokering that exchange.

But when it comes to online ad exchanges, there can be anywhere from four to seven middlemen inserting themselves in this process.

And this is where the trouble happens.

Because generally speaking, in the digital space, the buyer and the seller never actually meet each other.

In fact, they never even show up to the auction.

Instead, the buyer side sends a representative with instructions for how to conduct their business, and the seller side sends a representative with instructions on how to conduct their business, and then that business gets brokered by an ad network, or sometimes even multiple ad networks, who coordinate with data management platforms to make sure the ad gets shown to the right customer.

And it's OK if you didn't keep track of all of that, because the point of this is just that it is a very Byzantine convoluted system that plays out in milliseconds with basically zero oversight and everyone involved is taking a cut.

In the aftermath of these big public reckonings, there have been efforts to reform the system.

Advertisers have demanded more vetting of the websites and the ad exchanges.

They've demanded more transparency about where their ads end up and more overall accountability from the online ad industry, which handles hundreds of billions of dollars in advertiser funds every year.

But so far, the vast majority of reforms have either fallen short or failed completely.

Websites containing disinformation, propaganda, medical hoaxes, and fake obituaries continue to find their way into the ad exchanges.