Broad adoption of anti-fraud standards by the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG), an ad-safety advocacy organization, helped European advertisers reduce fraud by 69%, compared to the amount that would have been lost without those programs in place.
TAG offers a threat intelligence resource to gather, analyze and share threats – such as cybersecurity and malvertising – targeted against digital advertising, in order to reduce harm against consumers and the supply chain.
TAG’s Data Center IP (DCIP) List grew to nearly 68 million IP addresses, while its anti-piracy and malvertising tools were refined to improve accuracy, usability, and real-world enforcement.
By measuring adoption of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA)‘s Programmatic Transparency Benchmark, TAG found that marketers reclaimed $13.6 billion in working media value.
Measuring clickbait sites
It also found that Made-for-Advertising (MFA) spending fell below 0.5% for the first time. That benchmark is a measure of ad efficiency, media quality, and supply-chain transparency.
MFA sites are programmatic Web sites designed to use ad arbitrage to generate revenue using clickbait. Techniques used by such sites include ad auto-play, excessive refreshing, pop-ups; and constitute a waste of advertising dollars. They generally have a high percentage of ads and use paid traffic sources. In 2023, ANA estimated that MFA sites generated $88 billion in revenue. While not fraudulent on their own, MFA techniques are commonly leveraged by pirates.
Fighting malicious advertising
In 2025, TAG’s Threat Intelligence arm established an Anti-Malvertising Working Group, a “Certifiied Against Malvertising (CAM)” seal, and a new Ad Creative Source Tagging (ACST) requirement. Based on an initial proposal from OpenX, the ACST requires intermediaries to tag the ads they manage and allows for enhanced threat-sharing of crucial indicators-of-compromise, enabling faster detection of and response to malvertising incidents.
Why it matters
Piracy Monitor recognizes ad fraud as a form of piracy, as it exploits consumers, often for illegal gains.
TAG has developed a wide range of industry metrics and best-practices to help minimize fraud in connected advertising. TAG has more than 430 member companies in 37 countries, which gives TAG influence across the global digital advertising supply chain. Members include advertising technology companies (59%), publishers (23%), and buyers (18%).
Further reading
2025 TAG analysis shows ad industry progress in fighting fraud, sharing threats and improving transparency. Press release. February 3, 2026. Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG)
TAG 2025 Impact and Compliance Report. Report and analysis (PDF). February 2026. Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG)
