While the opacity of the adtech ecosystem makes it difficult to see the full scope of CSAM monetization, Garcia said “it’s fairly simple” to gauge the extent to which NCMEC-flagged websites are hosting advertising. 

She hopes that might serve as a starting point for future research and help the ad industry work toward resolving the inadvertent funding of CSAM on the internet.

Update Feb. 7, 4:25pm ET: DoubleVerify has issued a statement in response to the Adalytics report.