Top all-time · #3696
Adalytics
Company blog · adalytics.io/blogdatabusiness
Adalytics is the company blog at adalytics.io, writing about data and business. Since 2020, 20 different Hacker News readers have linked it 21 times, most often “Did Google mislead advertisers about TrueView skippable in-stream ads?”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-06-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (8) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Adalytics for its research reports on Google ad tech, including a sanctioned Russian ad company's access to user data, invalid TrueView video ads, and YouTube ads and COPPA compliance.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 8 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Automated programmatic log file analysis and measurement
Most-linked posts?
- Did Google mislead advertisers about TrueView skippable in-stream ads?6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2023-06-29
- Are YouTube Advertisers Inadvertently Harvesting Data from Children?3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-08-18
- Google’s ad exchange works on sanctioned websites in Russia, Iran, & Syria2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-04-22
- How many relevant ads do we see each day?2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-10-19
What Hacker News says?
Ok, I found some answers. The original research is linked in the OP: https://adalytics.io/blog/sanctioned-ad-tech-user-data -- this is much more informative than the ProPublica writeup. It includes a technical explanation of what's going on. Basically, the accusation is that a sanctioned Russian company is listed as an advertiser ("Demand Side Platform") on Google's real-time bidding platform for ads. This means the…
Comment linking /blog/sanctioned-ad-tech-user-data
on “Google allowed a sanctioned Russian ad company to harvest user data for months”Submitted Which journalists write the most ‘unsafe’ articles? as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI've been working in the difital advertising space for >14 years, and I'll second Nextgrid's comment. >Is it a ruse to oversell ads to gullible business owners, maybe with some help of complicit marketing departments? Absolutely. That's the dirty secret at the heart of online advertising. The advertisers are unsophisticated, so there is a staggering amount of fraud taking place. Advertisers have no way / have no int…
Comment linking /blog/adtech-supply-fees
on “Attribution is dying, clicks are dying”Submitted Members of Congress leaking constituent data overseas as a story · 3 points
HN discussionIt's in the original report, which several other people have already linked to: https://adalytics.io/blog/invalid-google-video-partner-truev... There's a detailed methodology section. I haven't verified their results, but they report finding things like muted, autoplaying ads even on big-name sites like the New York Times. A few key quotes: "For one major infrastructure brand approximately 73% of their TrueView skip…
Comment linking /blog/invalid-google-video-partner-trueview-ads
on “Google's Epic Multi-Billion Dollar Ad Scam Makes Sense to Us”Submitted How many relevant ads do we see each day? as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> "significant quantities", "many different brands", "appear to have been served", "many ads were served", "Often"...you can keep reading as long as you like, and will not find a single objective number or percentage I’m a bit confused. The Adalytics report definitely defines numbers and percentages of the samples they looked at. Obviously only Google will have the authoritative final numbers, but they are also the…
Comment linking /blog/invalid-google-video-partner-trueview-ads
on “Google's Epic Multi-Billion Dollar Ad Scam Makes Sense to Us”Submitted Are YouTube Advertisers Inadvertently Harvesting Data from Children? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThe original source article seems to be https://adalytics.io/blog/invalid-google-video-partner-truev...
Comment linking /blog/invalid-google-video-partner-trueview-ads
on “Google's Epic Multi-Billion Dollar Ad Scam Makes Sense to Us”Submitted Did Google mislead advertisers about TrueView skippable in-stream ads? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionHere is the report from Adalytics which was confirmed by Fairplay https://adalytics.io/blog/are-youtube-ads-coppa-compliant
Comment linking /blog/are-youtube-ads-coppa-compliant
on “YouTube may face billions in fines if FTC confirms child privacy violations”Submitted Who is sharing data with Google's FLoC ad algorithm? as a story · 2 points
HN discussionBoth this and the previous article https://adalytics.io/blog/tens-of-thousands-of-news-articles... are more interesting than the domain and page design would imply. They seem to be developing a browser extension for "personal ad analytics."
Comment linking /blog/tens-of-thousands-of-news-articles-are-labeled-as-unsafe-for-advertisers
on “Which journalists write the most ‘unsafe’ articles?”Submitted Research: YouTube Advertisers Harvesting Data from Millions of Children as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThis seems to just be a read-aloud summary of https://checkmyads.org/branded/googles-epic-multi-billion-do... with some rants in-between. Discussed 10 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36528077 Original report: https://adalytics.io/blog/invalid-google-video-partner-truev...
Comment linking /blog/invalid-google-video-partner-trueview-ads
on “YouTube has much bigger problems than adblock now [video]”Submitted Did Google mislead advertisers about TrueView skippable in-stream ads? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Which websites are sharing data about consumers with Elon Musk’s Twitter? as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Google’s ad exchange works on sanctioned websites in Russia, Iran, & Syria as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Google served ads on websites contained in the US Treasury’s sanctions list as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted AdTech Not Checking User TCF Consent as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted How many relevant ads do we see each day? as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
