Ad Tech Titans Unite in Unprecedented Alliance Against Digital Threats

MCLEAN, VA – February 26, 2026 – In a landmark move to combat the escalating crisis of digital threats, The Media Trust (TMT) has convened a powerful coalition of advertising technology’s biggest players. The inaugural meeting of the company's Product Advisory Council brought rivals and partners alike—including senior leaders from Microsoft, Amazon, Disney, The Trade Desk, and the BBC—to the same table with a shared mission: to forge a united front against the sophisticated adversaries weaponizing the digital ad supply chain.

The formation of this council signals a critical turning point for an industry grappling with malvertising, rampant ad fraud, and cloaked creatives that erode consumer trust and siphon away billions in revenue. It represents a collective admission that the fragmented, siloed defenses of the past are no longer sufficient to protect the integrity of the open internet.

"The formation of the Product Advisory Council comes at a pivotal moment for the digital media industry as threat actors have increasingly weaponized the tools and complexity of the digital landscape against consumers," said Leon Gurevich, CRO of The Media Trust, in a statement. He noted that the intersection of advertising with cybersecurity, privacy regulation, and geopolitical risk has elevated digital threat management to a strategic priority.

A United Front Against a Rising Tide of Threats

The scale of the problem facing the new council is immense. For years, the digital advertising ecosystem has been a lucrative target for fraudsters, with sophisticated invalid traffic (SIVT) and malvertising campaigns becoming more prevalent and harder to detect. While exact figures for recent years are closely guarded, historical data suggests ad fraud costs the industry tens of billions of dollars annually.

The council’s inaugural session confronted this reality head-on, focusing on threats ranging from malicious redirects that hijack user sessions to complex fraud operations that exploit the programmatic supply chain. A survey conducted by The Media Trust ahead of the meeting underscores the urgency, with 84% of industry leaders identifying digital threat management as a top priority for 2026. This reflects a growing consensus that the industry must shift from a reactive posture to a proactive, collective defense.

This collaborative approach is a significant departure from the traditional model, where individual companies often tackle security independently. Members of the new council—which also includes Index Exchange, Criteo, and major publishers like NewsUK and Future—have aligned on the need for proactive, real-time threat detection, greater industry-wide data sharing, and coordinated enforcement to shut down malicious actors at their source.

Trust as a Strategic and Commercial Imperative

Beyond the technical challenges, the council’s formation is driven by a powerful confluence of commercial and regulatory pressures. The very concept of "trust" in the digital ecosystem has evolved from a vague ideal into a hard-nosed business imperative. As the TMT survey indicated, industry leaders increasingly view robust consumer protection not as an expense, but as a strategic point of commercial differentiation and a competitive advantage.

This shift is heavily influenced by a rapidly tightening regulatory landscape. As of 2026, twenty U.S. states have comprehensive privacy laws in effect. California’s regulations now include mandatory risk assessments for automated decision-making, and its new Delete Act allows consumers to easily request data deletion from brokers. In Europe, GDPR enforcement has become more stringent, targeting the mechanics of surveillance advertising and cracking down on "consent string fraud."

Furthermore, new youth protection rules in states like Connecticut and California are prohibiting targeted advertising to minors, adding another layer of complexity and liability. This regulatory web, combined with pressure from consumer advocacy groups, has made proactive threat management and demonstrable privacy-by-design essential for legal compliance and brand survival. Failing to protect users is no longer just a reputational risk; it is a direct threat to revenue and market access.

The Mechanics of a Collective Defense

The council's work will not be purely theoretical. The members have agreed to collaborate on tangible initiatives, leveraging The Media Trust’s established infrastructure as a central nervous system for their collective efforts. TMT’s global threat detection network and its specialized Malware Desk will be instrumental in identifying and blocking malicious creatives in real time and tracking fraud operations as they move across different digital properties.

The key priorities established by the council include:

• Proactive Detection: Moving beyond post-bid analysis to real-time, pre-bid blocking of malicious ads.
• Intelligence Sharing: Creating a framework for sharing actionable threat intelligence and patterns of bad behavior across the ecosystem.
• Coordinated Enforcement: Working together to shut down malicious campaigns at their origin, preventing them from simply moving from one platform to another.

Many of the council's members already have robust internal security measures. The Trade Desk, for example, has a long-standing partnership with cybersecurity firm Human Security to block invalid traffic before an ad is ever purchased. Amazon employs sophisticated, AI-powered fraud detection across its vast advertising platform. The council’s purpose is to amplify these individual efforts, creating a network effect where an attack thwarted on one platform provides the intelligence to protect all other members.

A Strategic Play in a Competitive Market

While the council’s mission is collaborative, its formation is also a significant strategic move by The Media Trust. In a competitive digital trust and safety market that includes players like Human Security, Integral Ad Science (IAS), and Pixalate, TMT is positioning itself not just as a vendor, but as an essential, industry-unifying infrastructure provider.

By successfully gathering a "who's who" of ad tech and media at its table, TMT elevates its own standing and embeds its technology and expertise at the core of the industry's response to its most pressing challenge. This initiative solidifies its role as a thought leader and a central hub for the collective intelligence required to secure the ecosystem.

"Trust is now a strategic imperative," stated Chris Olson, CEO of The Media Trust. "No single company can solve this alone. The future of responsible advertising depends on collective intelligence, coordinated enforcement, and proactive defense. This Council represents a meaningful step forward in strengthening the security and integrity of the digital ecosystem.”

The Council is scheduled to meet throughout 2026, with dedicated working groups tasked with delivering actionable recommendations and collaborative initiatives. The success of this ambitious project could set a new standard for industry cooperation and determine the future resilience of the free and open internet against those who seek to exploit it.