Ad tech is rife with shady characters. Until now, questionable behavior has frequently gone unchallenged. That's about to change.
广告技术充斥着阴暗的角色。 到目前为止，有问题的行为经常被忽视。但这即将改变。
The Interactive Advertising Bureau''s Tech Lab has released a proposed standard called "ads.txt" that allows publishers to declare which businesses are authorized to sell their digital inventory. This lets the demand-side platforms, where buyers find inventory, to verify that the inventory for sale in ad exchanges comes from authorized sellers. As a contributor to this spec, I'm biased to its importance, but there's a good reason why this standard has been proposed and why publishers should welcome this.
互动广告局的技术实验室发布了一个名为“ads.txt”的标准，允许发布商声明哪些企业被授权销售其数字广告资源。 这样就可以让买方在需求方平台上验证广告交易平台中的库存是否来自被授权的卖家。 作为这个规范的贡献者，我偏向于其重要性，但是有一个很好的理由为什么这个标准被提出，为什么出版商应该欢迎这一点。
The industry has made it all too easy for bad actors to participate in the programmatic ecosystem. It's like a party where the invite is distributed too widely. Everybody shows up to your house and you lose track of who is who. Inevitably, some bad actors wreck your house.
坏角色参与到程序化生态系统之中太容易了。 这就像一个邀请了太多人的派对。 每个人都会看到你的房子，你不记得谁是谁。 不可避免的是，一些坏角色会破坏你的房子。
Today, it's easy for any shady entity to ask for a seat with ad exchanges and declare that they are authorized to sell inventory from any publisher, for example, the Wall Street Journal. While I expect exchanges to verify inventory legitimacy, this doesn't always occur. Whether or not that inventory is really from the Wall Street Journal is unknown, and that's how an advertiser is fooled.
如今，任何阴暗角色都可以轻松地要求有广告交易所的座位（参与权利），并声明他们有权出售任何出版商的库存，例如“华尔街日报”。 虽然我期望交易所验证库存合法性，但这并不一定会发生。 该库存是否真的来自“华尔街日报”是未知的，广告客户就是这样被欺骗的。
There are numerous ways to generate bogus traffic -- and fraud prevention vendors can't identify all types. Traffic could be generated by unwanted browser add-ons or be intentionally mislabeled. A common technique is to intentionally buy low-viewability banners, insert a video player that loops ads, and supply this "video inventory" on a video exchange. There's nothing strange about impressions coming from 'wsj.com', and it seems like a great deal. Only later, if ever, does anyone realizes they've been had. Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal has been unfairly assumed to have low quality inventory and ends up on advertiser blacklists.
有多种方式可以产生虚假的流量 - 防欺诈供应商无法识别所有类型。 流量可能是由不必要的浏览器附件产生的，或者是故意错误的标签（链接）。 一种常见的技术是有意购买低可见的横幅广告，插入一个循环播放的视频播放器，并在视频交换中提供这个“视频广告资源”。 来自“wsj.com”的大量曝光没什么奇怪的。 到后来，如果有的话，有人会意识到这一点。 同时，“华尔街日报”被不公平地鉴定为具有低质量的库存，最终导致被拉入广告主黑名单。
One simple lie can enable bad actors to get away with so much. Some exchanges reveal the name of the entity they received the impression from, and others do not. If an advertiser wants to scrutinize everything for fraudulent behavior, they must review detailed data that is not usually available as a standard report, and then make a judgment call as to whether they believe each of the selling entities is legitimate. With hundreds of different sources for a domain, this quickly becomes unmanageable. Even exchanges that have robust processes for ensuring legitimate inventory may unknowingly let in unverifiable inventory from suspicious ad networks.
一个简单的谎言就可以让坏角色摆脱（监测）。 一些交易所显示了曝光的来源名称，而其他交易所没有。 如果广告客户想要审查所有的欺诈行为，他们必须审查通常不作为标准报告使用的详细数据，然后作出判断，以确定他们是否认为每个销售实体是合法的。 一个域名会有数百个不同的来源，这很快变得难以管理。 即使具有确保合法库存流程的交易所也可能在不知不觉中允许难以验证的可疑广告资源出现。
The ads.txt spec is still in public review until June 19. That should be an ominous date for bad actors because if it becomes a standard, it stands to severely curtail their ability to make money in this way. There are ad marketplaces who make a living stretching the concept of what's acceptable. Advertisers, who are increasingly insisting that supply chains can be verified, will vote with their dollars and refuse to accept unverifiable inventory.
ads.txt规范在6月19日之前仍在公开审查。对于坏角色来说，这是一个不祥的日子，因为如果它成为一个标准，将严重削弱他们以这种方式赚钱的能力。 广告市场让生活更美好的概念是可以接受的。 供应链 中越来越多的广告主将以美元投票，拒绝接受无法验证的库存。
The beauty of ads.txt, and the reason it should gain adoption, is that any publisher can do it and there is so much to gain. It's a simple solution with no need for heavy development nor extra training nor additional capital. Publishers' ad ops teams simply produce a text file listing their account IDs on all of the programmatic platforms they sell on and upload it to their web server. They are presenting a clear signal for the buy-side to observe, funneling dollars to the publisher where they belong, instead of being absorbed by mystery intermediaries and fraudsters. If the majority of publishers get on board, the entire programmatic segment benefits from unprecedented transparency in knowing who exactly is allowed to operate in this space.
ads.txt的美丽，以及它应该获得采用的原因是，任何发布商都可以做到这一点，而且还有很多可以获得的收益。 这是一个简单的解决方案，无需重型开发，也不需要额外的培训，也不需要额外的资金。发布商的广告小组只需在其所销售的所有程序化平台上生成一个包含其帐户ID的文本文件，并将其上传到其Web服务器。 他们为买方提供一个明确的信号来观察，向他们所属的出版商汇出美元，而不是被神秘的中介机构和欺诈者吸收。 如果大多数发行商都能采用，那么整个程序化购买都可以从前所未有的透明度中获益，因为他们知道在这个空间中谁是被允许经营的（谁是正规的发行商）。
Some may be cautious about this new world where we all know who is selling what.I'd argue that this world is a lot better than an opaque one where ad buyers could be easily swindled. It is a straightforward mechanism to address an issue that hadn't yet had a good solution.
有些人可能会对这个新的世界保持警惕，我们知道谁在卖什么。我认为这个世界比不透明的广告买家被任意欺骗的世界要好得多。 解决尚未解决的问题是最直接的。
While ads.txt is in the public comment period, there will likely be more questions and concerns. Now is the time to share them, so all use cases can be considered and thorough implementation guidance can be developed. There are many other improvements that can be made in this and other specifications to help solve related challenges. But this is an elegant way to address one big problem. So let's start here and begin the process of making the industry a better place.
虽然ads.txt处于征询公众意见期间，人们可能会提出有更多的问题和疑虑。 现在是分享他们，考虑所有的使用场景，开发出全面的实施指导的时候了。 在这里面还有许多其他的改进可以帮助解决相关的挑战。 但这是解决一个大问题的优雅方式。 所以让我们从这里开始，开始使行业变得更美好。