Amazon plans to more transparency tools for its advertising offering, updates that come just weeks after its demand-side platform was among the high-profile firms publicly rebuked by lawmakers for ad tech’s role in monetizing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and other problematic content.
Updates to Amazon’s DSP include new page-level reporting through its Traffic Events API. The goal is to further strengthen its brand safety controls using internal systems and third-party integrations, according to parties familiar with the updates.
An Amazon Ads spokesperson confirmed the changes to Digiday, noting the company already provides site-level (domain-level) transparency through its Inventory Report available through its DSP and through Amazon Marketing Cloud.
The updates come as advertisers and agencies have pressured ad tech companies to improve ad transparency after the recent Adalytics report found ads running on problematic websites including CSAM and other content.
“We regret that this occurred and took swift action to block these websites from showing our ads,” an Amazon Ads spokesperson told Digiday in a statement. “We have strict policies in place against serving ads on content of this nature, and we are taking additional steps to help ensure this does not happen in the future. This affected a tiny portion of advertising spend for a small number of advertisers, and we have refunded all advertisers whose ads appeared on these websites.”
When asked for details about the refunds, Amazon wasn’t able to comment on the total dollars refunded or total advertisers whose ads ran on websites in question.
Amazon, DoubleVerify, Google and IAS all received letters from U.S. Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) berating them for allo