Google's Display Network, which places ads on 2M+ websites, lets site owners stay anonymous while putting ads beside pirated content, porn, and disinformation
In late 2021, the right-wing site Conservative Beaver published a story falsely claiming the FBI had arrested Pfizer's CEO for fraud. Tweets: @craigsilverman , @craigsilverman , @thezedwards , @schwanksta , @propublica , @oliviasolon , @propublica , @robpegoraro , @chrishendel , @craigsilverman , @jordanmroberts , @braedon , @craigsilverman , and @profcarroll See also Mediagazer Tweets: Craig Silverman / @craigsilverman : NEW investigation & 🧵: Google runs the world's biggest ad network, but it conceals most of the publishers it works with and where it places billions of ad $$$. We cracked open one of the world's most lucrative black boxes and found piracy, porn, & fraud: https://www.propublica.org/... Craig Silverman / @craigsilverman : Google stands alone in its embrace of confidentiality. Data from Jounce Media shows how Google stacks up against competitors. Over 75% of its partners are “confidential,” opening the door to abuses and schemes that steal potentially billions a year from fraud, scams, disinfo. https://twitter.com/... @thezedwards : “In the end, we matched 70% of the accounts in Google's ad sellers list to one or more domains or apps, more than any dataset ProPublica is aware of. But we couldn't find all of Google's publisher partners.” 👀 https://twitter.com/... Ken Schwencke / @schwanksta : Google is unique among its peers in making it nearly impossible to find which sites and apps make money from its display ads network. So @propublica wrote code to take an X-Ray to it. Here's what we found: https://www.propublica.org/... @propublica : Google's $31B ad network places ads for brands like Nike & Sephora on sites filled with pirated manga. It continues to work with these sites even after removing millions of their pages from its search engine due to copyright infringement. https://www.propublica.org/... Olivia Solon / @oliviasolon : Nobody makes the topic of ad fraud as compelling and accessible as Craig — great investigation with his colleague Ruth Talbot https://twitter.com/... @propublica : New: Google's ad business hides nearly all publishers it works with and where billions of ad dollars flow. We uncovered a network containing manga piracy, porn, fraud and disinformation. https://www.propublica.org/... Rob Pegoraro / @robpegoraro : Once again, Google's display-ads business reveals itself to be a wretched hive of scum and villainy—even in the sordid, sleazy context of the programmatic advertising industry. https://twitter.com/... Chris Hendel / @chrishendel : “In the nearly half-trillion-dollar digital ad industry, Google sets the rules of the road. More than any other company, #Google determines the online #ads we see, what they cost and who gets paid for them.” by @propublica's @CraigSilverman & Ruth Talbot https://www.propublica.org/... Craig Silverman / @craigsilverman : We wrote code and scanned millions of sites to uncover Google's partners and matched 70% of Google IDs to specific domains/apps. We uncovered a large and bafflingly complex system that thwarts attempts to know everyone Google works with and where it's sending advertisers' money. Jordan Roberts / @jordanmroberts : So interesting. A multi-billion dollar industry, with no oversight, absolute monopoly. And it controls visibility on the internet, and will tell no one how. It knows *all* about you. 🫣🤣 I have stopped using Google search for anything but looking up Maps. Anyone else? https://twitter.com/... @braedon : This story from Craig, Ruth, and Jeff is a must-read deep-dive into the murky depths of Google's ad network. Matching 70% of Google's sellers to sites/apps is very impressive - under 40% of their sellers are authorized by any (app-)ads.txts in Well-Known's dataset. https://twitter.com/... Craig Silverman / @craigsilverman : In response, Google told us publisher confidentiality does not correlate with bad behavior and it uses a variety of measures to protect ad buyers. Google also said the vast majority of ad revenue from its system goes to publishers who do not keep their information confidential. https://twitter.com/... David Carroll / @profcarroll : Adtech is worst. Google is the worst adtech. https://www.propublica.org/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
ProPublica's investigation extends its 2022 run of Google ad-business scrutiny: months after finding Google accepted gun ads it claimed to reject, reporters Craig Silverman and Ruth Talbot cracked open the Display Network's publisher side and found the world's biggest ad network conceals most of the sites where billions of ad dollars land — including outlets like Conservative Beaver, whose fake FBI-arrest-of-Pfizer's-CEO story ran alongside real ads.
The opacity finding lands on top of legal pressure: state attorneys general have already alleged Google misled both publishers and advertisers about ad pricing, and the company's response here — that publisher confidentiality doesn't correlate with bad behavior — sets up a transparency fight that regulators and ad buyers can now litigate with named examples.
First-order effects
- Advertisers buying through the Display Network learn their brands can appear beside pirated content, porn, fraud, and disinformation on sites Google declines to identify, undercutting the brand-safety assurances built into its ad products.
- Google is forced to publicly defend its publisher-confidentiality practice with named counterexamples in circulation, a defensive posture it did not face in earlier coverage of its pricing and policy claims.
Second-order effects
- The state AGs' pricing-misconduct suit gains a new evidentiary thread: concealment of supply, not just pricing, becomes part of the alleged pattern of misleading ad buyers.
- Advertisers and the intermediaries who audit supply (Jounce Media appears in the reporting) gain leverage to demand publisher-level disclosure, pressuring verification tools and rival networks to differentiate on transparency.
Third-order effects
- If regulators fold supply opacity into the antitrust case alongside the bundling concerns from the 2020 investigations, ad-network disclosure could shift from a competitive courtesy to a compliance requirement across adtech.
- A structural split opens in the ad market: networks that can name their inventory compete for brand budgets, while opaque long-tail supply drifts toward buyers who price in fraud and disinformation risk.
The trend: Google's ad business is moving from scrutiny of what it charges to scrutiny of what it hides, with transparency of ad supply becoming the next battleground between the adtech giant, regulators, and its own customers.