The Pressure Is on for Big Tech to Regulate the Broken Digital Advertising Industry

This article argues that the $700B digital advertising industry remains largely unregulated and opaque, enabling brand safety failures, monetization of harmful content, and potential threats to democratic processes. It highlights ongoing 2025 legislative initiatives in Brussels, Ottawa, Washington, London, California, and New York—including measures like the Online Harms Act and KYC/transparency requirements—to provide brands with data access, legal recourse, and automatic refunds when campaigns are exposed to fraud or safety violations, increasing pressure on major ad tech platforms to reform.