Project Sunblock: Protects brands from being seen with porn & piracy

Project Sunblock, an online ad measuring tool founded by experienced ad execs has helped the city of London tackle cyber crime in an operation called "operation creative". Project Sunblock allows any advertiser to see where exactly a brands ads ends up online, and when it appears on one of the 16 billion URLs listed in IBM’s database of fraudulent or illegal content sites, the ad can be replaced or removed. It's an accountability tool allowing advertisers to only spend money on legit sites and not fund porn, human trafficking or piracy with their online advertising spend. Yeah I know, you'd think using a reputable ad network would automatically make this the case, but as long Google Adsense are busy banning the likes of us for porn but still allowing adsense ads on The Pirate Bay the largest network in the world in inherently flawed.

Disrupting advertising is a vital part of Operation Creative, as advertising is a key generator of criminal profits for websites providing access to infringing content. A recent report by the Digital Citizens Alliance estimated that in 2013 piracy websites generated $227million from advertising.

Detective Chief Inspector Andy Fyfe, Head of PIPCU, said “ If an advert from an established brand appears on an infringing website not only does it lend the site a look of legitimacy, but inadvertently the brand and advertiser are funding online crime. Therefore the IWL also serves as a safety tool, ensuring the reputation of advertisers and brands are not discredited through association with illegal websites."

The Register reports that the ad biz now has one less excuse to sponor freetards and filth, while describing how Operation Creative worked.

This week the City of London’s anti-piracy unit PIPCU said it was using Sunblock to zap ads on pirate sites and replace them with an image from the Old Bill.

Andrew Goode, chief operating officer of Project Sunblock, told us the ad biz was keen to clean up advertising the reputation of the people who pay its wages – the big brands.

“The IAB [the UK’s Internet Advertising Bureau] are part of this. They’re very keen to see industry does clean up its act,” he told us.

Indeed, if a brand spends a lot of money online, knowing full well that as usual half of it is wasted, do they really want to waste half of it alongside porn and piracy? How long can a brands image survive untarnished on sites that exploit people before buyers catch on? How long is a brand willing to risk it, when easy auditing tools like Project Sunblock are now available?