Google said it demonetized ibb.co in January 2024, and the site has generated no ad revenue since then. The associated imgbb.com, the company said, was demand-restricted last July, meaning that most ads were already disallowed on Google’s ad network. Google fully demonetized imgbb.com when it learned about the forthcoming Adalytics report.
The company also emphasized its strict publisher monetization policies, enforcement measures, and advertiser controls. Google did not announce any policy or product changes, but said it will “continue to holistically evaluate our processes to determine whether any additional steps should be taken.”
Google declined a request for comment and did not respond to questions about whether it would reimburse affected advertisers.
What about the other implicated parties?
The senators also questioned verification vendors DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science (IAS) over apparent brand safety failures, as well as the Media Rating Council (MRC) and the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG), which issued stamps of approval for their technology.
All six organizations—Google, Amazon, DoubleVerify, IAS, the MRC, and TAG—have responded to senators’ inquiries in letters obtained by ADWEEK.
In its letter, DoubleVerify claimed that its tools function based on advertiser preferences and that technical limitations contributed to ads appearing alongside explicit content on the site in question.
Following the scandal, DoubleVerify has rolled out a handful of brand safety updates, expanded its blocklists, and begun working more closely with law enforcement and NCMEC to enhance detection and prevention measures. The firm has also enabled access to full URL-level reporting for clients, which allows brands to understand the exact pages on which their ads appear, not just the domains.
IAS, for its part, said it has blacklisted the flagged domains—which it found represented less than 0.00025% of its monitored impressions—and is reassessing how it classifies image-hosting sites. The verification company also outlined limitations in monitoring image-only pages, but reaffirmed its commitment to industry safety standards.
Earlier this month, IAS also expanded its exclusion list, adding domains flagged in five years of NCMEC reports. It’s also improving its user-generated content filtering tech and boosting URL-level reporting to improve transparency for advertisers.
“We are committed to working in partnership with the industry and other companies to reduce the proliferation of bad actors while preserving the open internet,” wrote IAS CEO Lisa Utzschneider.
