From the Department of, “Why Aren’t these Rat-F%$#s in Jail?”

The Ad Contrarian has a rundown of where your ad dollars go, and it’s pretty f%$#ing grim:

Today, we’re going to make a nice colorful funnel using the latest data from some of the ad industry’s most reliable sources to trace a dollar spent for programmatically-bought display advertising on its exciting journey from your pocket to the bank accounts of middlemen, con men, crooks, and the Bermuda Triangle.

Adtech was created to make the buying and selling of online advertising so much more efficient. Today, about $350 billion dollars is spent on online advertising. 70%+ of it is bought programmatically. It turns out it has been wonderfully efficient for the lads and lassies in the adtech industry. Not so efficient for losers like you and me. Let’s see how it’s working…

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8. Blogweasel math notwithstanding, looks like your dollar bought you 3¢ of real display ads viewed by real human people.

If the ad-tech companies were the subject of a deep dive from law enforcement, I’m pretty sure that a lot of people would end up in the dock.

The foundation of internet commerce is built on sand.