The critique speaks to the difficult nature of creating reform in programmatic, where misaligned incentives, complicated technology and a lack of transparency allow problems to persist.
A definition that’s too narrow?
Made for advertising sites generally have highly viewable ad placements that programmatic algorithms favor. That’s partly because they’re designed for the viewability standard, which was devised nearly 10 years ago to root out another unscrupulous ad practice: stuffing ads in places users couldn’t see.
“Metrics create incentives,” the source said. “One of the reasons the web is so cluttered today is because the incentives that viewability created.” The idea is that viewability may have fixed the problem of below-the-fold placements, but created other challenges like webpages loaded with ads.
Some worry bad actors would also game any standardized version of MFA sites. For example, the current definition suggests a high ad-to-content ratio could be greater than 30%—sites could start piling their pages with ads such that the ratio grows to 29%, just shy of the level that would be a violation, the source continued.
Made for advertising sites are always adapting to avoid detection. The top 150 MFA sites didn’t exist even just a few months ago, Jounce’s Kane told AdExchanger.
A definition too broad?
A narrow definition of made for advertising might make it too easy for bad actors to avoid enforcement, but a definition that’s too broad might put legitimate publishers in the crosshairs of MFA-wary ad buyers.
Sources said many publishers are guilty of violating at least one of the definition’s MFA criteria. ANA president Bill Duggan told Digiday that a publisher would likely need to meet at least three of these criteria to be considered MFA.