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Google can’t stop catching fines in Europe; Roblox game developers might finally get a cut of a revenue; and eBay is getting into the AI game.

In today’s digital advertising landscape, speed, scale and sophistication have become both a promise and a problem. Innovation has accelerated – but so too has fragmentation. Marketers are expected to drive performance across an ever-expanding universe of platforms, formats and data streams – often without the clarity or confidence they need to succeed.

Ron Jacobson took the classic programmatic startup route. Which is to say, he pivoted randomly from a software job at a bank (well, the New York Fed), landed at an ad tech company and later founded his own ad tech startup before getting acquired by yet another ad tech company.

AdExchanger spoke with DoubleVerify CEO Mark Zagorski just a few days after the company sued Adalytics alleging defamation over the latter’s recent report on bot detection.

The wave of ad tech headlines in recent weeks represents a long overdue moment of reckoning for companies who (still) hold disproportionate control over publishers’ website traffic and revenue potential.

Industry experts agree that the bot activity analyzed in the latest Adalytics report is among the easiest type of invalid traffic to spot.

An Adalytics report released Friday details numerous instances of brands serving ads to known bots that appear on the IAB Tech Lab’s International Spiders and Bots list and TAG’s Data Center IP List.

WPP shares dipped to a four-year low on after posting its 2024 earnings results. Plus: How brands are courting virality.

Acquiring Scibids and Rockerbox in quick succession is about making DoubleVerify more attractive to potential customers and stickier with existing ones, DV CEO Mark Zagorski told investors.

DoubleVerify adds Rockerbox to its attribution stack; Taboola courts performance marketers with a new ad platform; and the end of the MLB/ESPN deal spells opportunity for sports streamers.