Tokyo, December 5, 2017 ---D.A.Consortium Inc. (DAC) and its consolidated subsidiary Platform One Inc. are pleased to announce that Platform One’s demand-side platform (DSP) MarketOne® is to support ad bidding using ads.txt, a standard being promoted by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), a US interactive advertising industry organization.

■ Background
Combatting ad fraud (*1) has recently become a serious concern for digital advertisers in North America, Europe, and Japan. In particular, there have been cases where advertisers have purchased ad inventory via real time bidding (RTB) using a DSP, but the ads were not served in the expected media slot.

This problem undermines trust in the digital advertising supply chain, but previously there was no way for advertisers and DSP providers to verify that the impressions they purchased were impressions in the desired medium. Ads.txt, unveiled by IAB in May 2017, shows great promise as a means of solving the problem.

■ Overview of ads.txt
Ads.txt is an initiative being promoted by IAB to increase transparency in the programmatic advertising ecosystem. Media companies can identify vendors (such as SSPs and ad exchanges) authorized to sell their ad inventory by creating their own ads.txt files and disclosing them on their website, where DSP providers can check them when purchasing inventory. That makes it possible to avoid placing ads in high-risk ad slots, such as those masquerading as another domain (domain spoofing).

■ How MarketOne® is being upgraded

To eliminate ad fraud and ensure transparency, MarketOne® will support ad bidding based on the content of ads.txt files. Specifically, where there are discrepancies between the content of crawled ads.txt files and the ad request from the ad space, no inventory will be bought or the unit bid price will be kept down.

Steps have already commenced, via the supply-side platform (SSP) YIELD ONE® offered by Platform One, to promote and support adoption of the ads.txt standard by Japanese media companies (*2), and every effort will be made to encourage its widespread use. Further enhancements to MarketOne® are planned down the road, including reporting of whether or not ads.txt has been adopted in delivered inventory, and a feature enabling MarketOne® users to set delivery controls at will.

DAC and Platform One are strongly committed to enhancing the reliability of digital advertising. To that end they will continue taking action to foster the growth of a truly secure, effective digital advertising market by working to develop solutions to concerns like ad fraud and brand safety (*3).

(*1)Ad fraud: Any dishonest means of obtaining advertising revenue by illegitimately generating a large number of impressions or clicks, whether through the use of a bot or through churning out spam (excerpted from JIAA, Glossary of Basic Internet Advertising Terms, 2017 edition: https://www.jiaa.org/dbps_data/_material_/common/j... [in Japanese]).

(*2) Press release of Sept. 8, 2017, “Media firms using the SSP YIELDONE® to be offered support with ads.txt configuration” http://www.dac.co.jp/press/2017/20170908_adstxt (in Japanese).

(*3) Brand safety: Principles and tools for verifying that ads are shown in appropriate places or controlling their placement to ensure they are.

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＜Corporate Information＞
■ D.A.Consortium Inc.

Representative	：Masaya Shimada, President&CEO
Head Office	：Yebisu GardenPlace Tower, 4-20-3, Ebisu, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Established	：December 1996
Business	：Media services, solutions service, operational services

※DAC is a 100% subsidiary of D.A.Consortium Holdings Inc.

■ D.A.Consortium Holdings Inc.

Representative	：Masaya Shimada, Representative Director & President
Head Office	：Yebisu GardenPlace Tower, 4-20-3, Ebisu, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Established	：October 2016
Listing Market	：2nd Section of Tokyo Stock Exchange（Stock code: 6534）

■ Platform One Inc. .

Representative	：Norihide Akiba, President
Head Office	：Yebisu GardenPlace Tower 33F, 4-20-3, Ebisu, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
Established	：February 2011
Business	：Development and operation of digital advertising trading platforms

For inquiries regarding this News Release
D.A.Consortium Inc.
Corporate Strategy Group Public Relations / E-mail: ir_inf@dac.co.jp
Platform One Inc.
Tel: 03-5421-8211 E-mail: info@platform-one.co.jp