Statement on Adalytics’ GIVT Report

Adalytics’ latest “report” and The Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) coverage of it are inaccurate and misleading. Both Adalytics and The WSJ are aware that the premise and conclusions of the report are unsupported by the facts. As we’ve seen in prior cases, Adalytics manipulates data and uses these reports as marketing tools to sell its own services — at the expense of transparency, accuracy and trust.

Here are the facts: The report wrongly suggests that DV failed to detect general invalid traffic (GIVT) and more evasive bots, like URLScan. In every example shared with us prior to publication, including The Guardian example featured in The WSJ article, DV had correctly identified the bot traffic. When that occurs, the impressions are removed from billable counts reported to DV’s advertiser customers, as per industry standards. The WSJ was informed of this before publication and provided evidence of numerous inaccuracies. Notably, none of this information is in The WSJ article, as its inclusion would have undermined the false claims being made.

Upon review of the article, The WSJ does not cite a single example of a GIVT impression that DV actually failed to detect or report to the advertiser. Meanwhile, an independent fraud expert has reviewed The WSJ’s information and has said it “really misses the mark on a few key and obvious points” and is based on “a manipulated test.” 

While DV was never provided with the full report by Adalytics prior to WSJ publishing the story, DV was first presented with details of the report by The WSJ in January. At that time, we outlined flaws and inaccuracies, which we shared transparently in a statement and blog post on GIVT. Since then, although Adalytics never provided DV with direct access to their report, we received additional information regarding their claims, which continue to be based on misleading and misunderstood data. Despite our clarifications, The WSJ and Adalytics have chosen to misrepresent the facts while demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of invalid traffic (IVT), our technology and the broader digital ad ecosystem.

For more information, please refer to the following resources:

• Our January statement and blog post on GIVT. (Note: At the time, DV did not have access to the specific impression data Adalytics later shared with The WSJ. After reviewing several examples provided by The WSJ, DV confirmed the impressions were correctly identified as bot traffic and the impressions were removed.)
• For full transparency, a point-by-point corrections checklist we have provided to The WSJ.
• A blog post from independent bot fraud expert Antoine Vastel, highlighting inaccuracies in The WSJ’s story based on the Adalytics report. He notes DV’s technology—even in the manipulated tests featured in The WSJ article—performed exceptionally well.
• A blog post by DV Fraud Lab lead Gilit Saporta, who has over two decades of experience in fraud detection and cybersecurity, and is the author of a widely-respected guide to online fraud defense. The post explains headless browser bots like URLScan, and includes context from the CEO of URLScan, who The WSJ did not speak to and whose comments contradict their reporting.

Attempting to frame a limited, well-managed issue as a broader industry failure does not protect advertisers or improve accountability. Instead, it leads to incorrect conclusions and unnecessary confusion in the marketplace, without addressing real fraud. Moreover, it makes advertiser campaigns less safe and more wasteful, while hurting monetization for legitimate publishers.

At DV, our Fraud Lab is dedicated to protecting advertisers from both GIVT waste and sophisticated invalid traffic (SIVT) fraud. While it’s disappointing to see this report mischaracterize our work and the industry’s management of GIVT, we remain committed to educating the industry on how verification and IVT detection operate at scale. 

We will document inaccuracies found in Adalytics’ GIVT full report within our Transparency Center. Additionally, we will continue to vigorously defend our technology, company, and the integrity of verification against misleading and inaccurate claims.