Check My Ads challenges auction transparency standards

Check My Ads Institute submitted formal comments on October 20, 2025, challenging the Media Rating Council's proposed Digital Advertising Auction Transparency Standards. The watchdog organization warned that the framework risks legitimizing opacity and cementing a two-tier system favoring major technology companies.

The submission outlines fundamental concerns about governance, enforcement mechanisms, and preferential treatment of closed-loop auctioneers. According to the comments, the proposal would allow MRC members to craft, vote on, and potentially receive accreditation under the same framework, undermining independence between the accrediting body and accredited firms.

Governance concerns raise independence questions

The digital advertising industry faces a trust crisis spanning over a decade. Advertisers continue to fund illegal and harmful content while losing visibility into media spending. According to Check My Ads, untold billions are lost to ad fraud schemes.

The organization's submission emphasizes that MRC's recognition of the need for standards should be applauded. However, ambiguous, lax, or unenforced standards would exacerbate opacity, mislead market participants, and harm competition.

The composition of the Steer Team for the transparency initiative raises questions about conflicts of interest. Each participant derives revenue from big tech companies with vested interests and resources to influence standards. These companies can subtly shape technical proposals to align with commercial interests to the detriment of rivals and other market participants.

MRC historically accredited measurement services, which were precluded from membership according to the organization's Voluntary Code of Conduct supplied to Congress in 2009. The proposed standards would cement MRC's departure from this principle by expanding the practice of allowing members to craft, vote on, and potentially be accredited under frameworks they help create.

This dynamic undermines critical independence between MRC as the accrediting body and firms it accredits. As more paying members also seek accreditation—particularly big tech companies with significant market leverage—MRC should ensure its governance model is fit-for-purpose. The organization should seek government review of its activities as it has done previously.

Framework marks significant scope expansion

The MRC's proposal to issue accreditations for Auction Transparency fundamentally differs from its historical activities accrediting measurement services. The Broadcast Rating Council, now the Media Rating Council, was established approximately sixty years ago following the Harris Committee hearings.

The advertising market has changed drastically since that time, alongside the scope and nature of services MRC accredits. Congress has not since re-evaluated whether the high-frequency ad tech marketplace should still be industry regulated. This consideration becomes particularly relevant against the backdrop of market monopolization and massive influence wielded by a small handful of dominant firms over all aspects of the industry, including standard-setting organizations.

MRC previously sought DOJ review under the Business Review Procedure for far narrower changes to its programs. The current standard is more than an adjustment to MRC's methodology or procedures. It reaches into auction mechanics, bid-level data disclosure, supply chain transparency, governance of DSPs and SSPs, and closed-loop platform algorithms.

These areas are much more likely to implicate vertical restraints, market power, anti-competitive self-preferencing, and points of control. The concentration of power in the digital advertising market makes these considerations especially significant.

Enforcement mechanisms remain absent

The most glaring omission from MRC's proposed standards is the seemingly complete absence of enforcement mechanisms. The term "enforcement" appears only three times in the standards document. Where mentioned, MRC vaguely references requirements for Auctioneers to enforce their policies and inventory quality standards.

The document does not outline specific requirements for enforcement. It does not detail the MRC's own revised enforcement posture once standards are published.

MRC's standards are voluntary. Audits to illustrate conformity to standards are also voluntary. Vendors submitting for accreditation do so voluntarily. However, the majority of provisions in the standards are themselves voluntary.

If an accredited service is found out of compliance with transparency standards during an audit, the consequences remain unclear. Perhaps more importantly, how could a finding of non-adherence occur when so few provisions are denoted as requirements?

For example, do applicants seeking renewal but found non-compliant automatically lose accreditation? Is a warning issued to come into compliance? If so, what is the probationary period? Is there any punitive mechanism that would incentivize compliance?

MRC's governing documents seemingly contain ambiguity around enforcement, or disciplinary procedures. While the Voluntary Code of Conduct acknowledges that a Participating Measurement Service can face suspension from participation, publication of non-compliance, or other Disciplinary Action, the procedures for arriving at such decisions are contained in another non-public document.

To the extent that there is greater clarity on how MRC decides to take enforcement action, in practice MRC has historically seemingly failed to consistently pursue enforcement. Instead, the organization relied on loopholes and technicalities in its standards to point to why such action is not necessary.

Closed-loop auctioneers receive preferential treatment

The Closed-Loop Ad Auctioneer framework effectively codifies a lower standard of transparency for vertically integrated platforms that already possess overwhelming market power. By excusing walled gardens from log-level auditability and allowing generalized disclosures in place of data access, the draft creates an asymmetrical compliance regime favoring the largest and least transparent actors.

OpenRTB provisions explicitly state that auctioneers and intermediaries should provide reporting to buyer users. This includes disclosure of general rules for demand sources where permissible, pricing and winner determination inclusive of factors that apply to and affect price. Efforts should be made to report OpenRTB parameters to buyer end users.

Closed-Loop provisions only stipulate that the auction type and method for calculating second-price and modified second-price should be disclosed. Variables should be made known in general and reported where applied.

While it is explicitly stated that OpenRTB reporting should include certain identifiable parameters and transaction-level factors, this appears to imply that Closed-Loop reporting can rely on general disclosures.

OpenRTB requirements specify that both the SupplyChain object and SupplyChainNode object should be used to fullest extent and be complete. Buying platforms should provide reporting against both the Transaction ID and RequestID object to all buyers.

No comparable requirement codifying specific fields that must be provided to enable transaction-level traceability exists for Closed-Loop auctioneers. While OpenRTB provisions theoretically would enable transaction-level traceability in OpenRTB auctions, a comparable requirement is absent from the Closed-Loop section.

The OpenRTB provisions explicitly encourage use of Open Measurement SDK, Ads.txt 1.1, and other IAB Tech Lab tools to facilitate third-party access to measurement data. No mention of SDKs or external interoperability standards appears for Closed-Loop auctioneers.

Rather than encourage comparable interoperability or data transparency from Closed-Loop auctioneers, MRC effectively exempts them.

Standards must align with antitrust remedies

The MRC's framework touches upon pieces of potential remedies in both DOJ antitrust cases against Google. These include disclosure of material changes to ad auctions included in the Search remedies decision, as well as the DOJ's proposal for Google to open-source DFP's final auction logic.

To the extent that MRC intends to allow reference to this standard to somehow demonstrate or support Google's compliance with court-ordered remedies, the standards as proposed are insufficient. MRC lacks the requisite independence. Ernst & Young, as MRC's selected auditor, also has some degree of conflict, as it acts as Google's own auditor.

The DOJ's proposals for auction transparency in the context of Google's publisher ad server are far more prescriptive, lending themselves to true auditability. If MRC aims to raise the bar for the industry, it should also require real, substantive independent audits by technically qualified independent auditors that go beyond attestation and documentation.

It is also unclear why MRC elected to exclude Prebid auctions from its transparency standard. The rationale for this should be made transparent to avoid contributing to marketplace confusion. MRC has acknowledged in the past where certification scope and limitations are not readily understood by the market.

Standards should incorporate privacy protections

OpenRTB ad auctions raise consumer privacy and data security concerns, which are expressly avoided by MRC's suggested standards. The potential for data leakage throughout the RTB process is vast. The auction broadcasts large amounts of packaged, aggregated data about consumers that will be shown to potentially thousands of advertisers, or rather their automated proxies through various adtech platforms.

This process also incentivizes data brokers to exploit the RTB process and bid on ads to gain access to massive amounts of consumer data. Without transparency requirements surrounding bidding in auctions, this practice may go on unmitigated.

In the Federal Trade Commission's litigation against Mobilewalla, the Commission alleged that the company collected sensitive location information about consumers and sold it to third parties without express consumer consent. This information was later sold to advertisers for use in targeting consumers with advertisements, contributing to the RTB process by providing accurate location data in the auction bidding process, making it available to thousands of bidders, even if only one bidder wins.

Rather than sidestep existing regulatory requirements, MRC is in a position to address this gap. The organization should include in its standard the requirement for OpenRTB Auctioneers to include fields that would allow for the identification of entities merely harvesting bidstream data. These include the loss notice URL and standardized loss reason codes to detect anomalous patterns of behavior and other forms of abuse.

MRC should require that Auctioneers, as part of qualification requirements, prohibit the collection, distribution, and storage of data exposed in bid responses for auctions in which Auctioneers did not win. Auctioneers should enforce this prohibition. The mechanism for this would likely be attestation. However, with this commitment, MRC is well-positioned to enforce against any Auctioneers found to have failed to enforce this prohibition.

Omissions in SDK and mobile app standards

The MRC does not mention the use of or auditing of software development kits for monetization by Closed-Loop Ad Auctioneers. SDKs are one of several core mechanisms upon which auction-based app advertising for both programmatic and closed-loop systems are built.

Scrutiny of these systems is integral to properly evaluating transparency in app ad auctions. As Closed-Loop auction platforms such as Meta and Google increasingly comingle the methods of buying on owned and operated media with third-party websites via AI buying products, advertisers will remain unable to ascertain for themselves whether fair auction dynamics are at play.

It would be a major oversight not to include standards expressly related to closed-loop auction SDKs, given their significance in enabling mobile app advertising. No major improvement to transparency of ad auctions can be made if the role of SDKs are not addressed in this process.

Technical requirements need strengthening

The OpenRTB Specifications have long included important or useful parameters recommended by MRC, such as SupplyChain Object. Nevertheless, many of these attributes have not been passed by auction participants, as MRC acknowledges in research undertaken to draft this framework.

MRC does not state that entities must include these attributes if they are to be MRC accredited. Therefore, it is unclear why a new voluntary standard by MRC that would merely encourage the use of certain key attributes not marked as mandatory in the OpenRTB specifications would produce a different result.

MRC should expressly require the use of such key parameters, rather than dilute a self-regulatory standard that is voluntary to begin with.

Providing buyers and publishers with transparency on the average number of nodes doesn't go far enough. A full breakdown of each node with each node's corresponding seller IDs should be included in reporting. This would allow buyers and publishers to understand the entities engaged in reselling across the end-to-end transaction.

MRC should require Auctioneers to expose SupplyChain Object client-side, to enable further independent research and auditing.

Recommendations for strengthening standards

Check My Ads Institute outlined several recommendations to strengthen the MRC's proposed standards and bridge gaps in governance and oversight.

First, MRC should undertake and publicly publish amendments to MRC By-laws, Code of Conduct, and other relevant charters to strengthen policies and procedures that mitigate conflicts of interest and prevent harm to competition. Check My Ads Institute has sought to understand these policies and procedures in the past, but MRC has declined to provide them.

MRC's strong non-disclosure agreements further ensure these documents are not available to the public. These agreements effectively preclude certain organizations from joining MRC as members, given that duties as independent industry watchdogs require discussing these issues publicly and with government.

Second, MRC should seek a Business Review Letter or Antitrust Advisory Opinion from DOJ or FTC before finalizing the standard. MRC should also submit for review the aforementioned updates to its governance structure and codes of conduct to accompany the standard.

Third, MRC should ensure that standards are no less stringent than analogous transparency requirements sought by DOJ in its cases against Google. MRC itself must resolve its own structural conflicts such that it satisfies DOJ's stated criteria for a neutral industry body.

For example, in selecting an Open-Source Auction Administrator, DOJ is seeking a neutral industry body that is independent of and unconnected to Google. The body must have the intent and capability—including necessary managerial, operational, technical, and financial capability—to administer the Open-Source Auction.

While MRC's auction standards are more broadly applicable, and while MRC is the accreditation entity and not the administrator, this serves as a useful analogy for criteria that MRC should satisfy if it wishes to advance transparency in digital advertising auctions.

Fourth, MRC should provide information about the audit methodology that will be applied to vendors seeking accreditation under these standards. For these standards to be useful and prevent confusion in the marketplace, it must be clear what MRC, via its third-party auditor, is and is not auditing, and how data is sourced for OpenRTB Ad Auctioneers and Closed-Loop Auctioneers.

Fifth, MRC should include in these standards a detailed enforcement procedure for accredited services found not to be adhering to standards. This should include clear definition of what constitutes a violation and repeated violation of the standards. To this end, MRC should specify which elements of the standard are required for accreditation.

Sixth, MRC should formalize a process whereby non-MRC members are able to report suspected non-compliance and receive updates on resolution of such reports. The opacity of MRC's processes, particularly regarding enforcement, stands in stark contrast to its stated ambitions to advance transparency. Such a reporting mechanism would remove existing barriers, bring it in line with other self-regulatory initiatives, and help to mitigate, to an extent, the conflicts of interest in MRC's model.

Disclosure requirements must address conflicts

The MRC does not include any disclosure requirements related to take-rates or other commercial aspects of Auction Transparency. Commercial incentives are at the center of opacity and resulting waste in the programmatic ecosystem.

At a minimum, these standards should require Auctioneers to declare and disclose whether they derive revenue from both the buy-side and the sell-side of advertising transactions.

To mitigate opaque conflicts of interest that undermine advertiser trust, MRC should, in partnership with IAB Tech Lab, develop a standard where Auctioneers are required to maintain a page that lists all entities they have any ownership stake in or profit-sharing arrangement with. This page would be required under the MRC transparency standard. Failure to disclose these arrangements would be grounds for disciplinary action.

MRC should also explore including in its standards more precise disclosure of take-rate detail. For example, in partnership with IAB Tech Lab, MRC might incorporate a requirement for sell-side Auctioneers to append their revenue shares to bid responses. Similar mechanisms should be contemplated for buy-side Auctioneers, and Closed-Loop platforms to provide comparable transparency.

Why this matters for marketing

The MRC's proposed auction transparency standards arrive as the digital advertising industry faces unprecedented scrutiny from regulators and courts worldwide. Federal judges have ordered Google to disclose material changes to ad auctions to promote greater transparency in search text ads pricing.

The company was found to have secretly fine-tuned its ad auctions to raise prices incrementally, escaping advertiser notice. These surreptitious pricing practices left advertisers in darkness and facilitated earning of monopoly profits.

Publishers and advertisers can now proceed directly to calculating financial harm from Google's proven monopolizationwithout having to prove all over again that the company broke the law. The court already decided that Google illegally controlled the market and used unfair tactics to force publishers to use its systems.

Programmatic advertising infrastructure has fractured over transparency standards. Demand-side platforms lost a critical tool for detecting auction manipulation when Prebid.org disabled cross-exchange functionality of transaction IDs. The change eliminates advertisers' ability to identify when they receive multiple bid requests for the same advertising opportunity across different supply-side platforms.

MRC previously updated its Invalid Traffic Detection and Filtration Standards to modernize guidelines originally issued in October 2015. The additions and revisions were intended to more fully account for the range of invalid traffic threats and related issues that exist in today's online environment.

After years of advertisers paying for brand safety that only checked keywords, the Media Rating Council issued policy requiring actual content analysis. The implementation gap between standard publication and enforcement reflects challenges of voluntary compliance in a competitive market.

The auction transparency standards could either advance meaningful transparency or legitimize existing opacity. According to Arielle Garcia, Chief Operating Officer at Check My Ads Institute, the proposal risks making opacity the standard. By implicitly legitimizing less transparency from major platforms while allowing their trade association partners to write the rules, this framework deepens the very harms it claims to solve.

Iesha White, Director of Intelligence at Check My Ads Institute, emphasized that when those being accredited are writing the rules, independence is a fiction.

The ultimate test of these standards will be whether they restore trust through mandatory, independently audited, publicly disclosed, and consistently enforced requirements. Or whether they simply provide cover for continued opacity under the guise of voluntary self-regulation.

Time and time again, self-regulation has proven insufficient to resolve challenges in the complex and concentrated digital advertising market. Transparency standards can only restore trust if they are mandatory, independently audited, publicly disclosed, and consistently enforced. Without these elements, even calling these unenforced, voluntary suggestions standards is misleading. If everything is optional, then nothing is a standard.

Timeline

• October 20, 2025 - Check My Ads Institute submits formal comments on MRC Digital Advertising Auction Transparency Standards
• September 2, 2025 - Judge orders Google to disclose ad auction changes in transparency ruling
• August 27, 2025 - Prebid.org disables cross-exchange transaction ID functionality, eliminating auction manipulation detection tool
• June 21, 2025 - Google announces changes to MRC accredited metrics counting in Display & Video 360
• April 17, 2025 - Federal court rules Google violated antitrust laws by monopolizing digital advertising technology markets
• February 7, 2025 - Senators Blackburn and Blumenthal probe Amazon and Google after report reveals ads placed on websites hosting CSAM
• October 27, 2025 - Court grants partial summary judgment allowing private plaintiffs to proceed with damages claims against Google
• October 2, 2025 - Trade Desk launches OpenAds to counter supply chain manipulation
• September 8, 2025 - PubMatic files comprehensive antitrust lawsuit against Google
• April 24, 2022 - MRC updates Invalid Traffic Detection and Filtration Standards

Summary

Who: Check My Ads Institute, a digital advertising watchdog organization, submitted comments challenging the Media Rating Council's proposed auction transparency standards.

What: The 15-page submission warns that MRC's proposed Digital Advertising Auction Transparency Standards risk codifying unequal transparency requirements that favor closed-loop platforms while creating conflicts of interest through allowing members to craft, vote on, and potentially be accredited under frameworks they help create.

When: Check My Ads Institute submitted formal comments on October 20, 2025, during the public comment period for the MRC standards.

Where: The standards would apply globally to ad auctioneers including both closed-loop platforms such as Google, Meta, and Amazon, as well as open programmatic intermediaries including DSPs and SSPs.

Why: The marketing community should care because these standards could either advance meaningful transparency that restores trust in digital advertising auctions, or legitimize existing opacity while providing cover for continued lack of accountability. According to Check My Ads, commercial incentives are at the center of opacity and resulting waste in the programmatic ecosystem. Without mandatory, independently audited, publicly disclosed, and consistently enforced requirements, the standards risk exacerbating the very problems they claim to solve. The concentration of power in digital advertising markets, combined with ongoing antitrust scrutiny and court-ordered remedies requiring auction transparency, makes the MRC's approach to standard-setting particularly consequential for competitive dynamics and advertiser protection.