The news: DoubleVerify has filed a lawsuit against ad industry watchdog Adalytics, claiming it made defamatory statements in a March report about digital advertising fraud, per Adweek.

• In the lawsuit, filed Monday in a Maryland district court, DoubleVerify claimed it wants to “hold Adalytics accountable for…defamatory and false statements concerning DoubleVerify and its business.”
• The Adalytics report suggested that DoubleVerify’s pre-bid filters are ineffective at detecting and blocking bots, even self-declared ones.
• Per the lawsuit, Adalytics “knowingly” made “false public statements to drive customers away from DoubleVerify.” The lawsuit claims Adalytics “acted with actual malice in publishing the false and misleading statements.”

Zooming out: DoubleVerify isn’t alone—Adalytics has made a name for publishing dramatic reports that allege poor oversight, ad waste, or other issues within major advertising services, drawing the ire of industry leaders.

• Last year, an Adalytics report alleged that AI-powered brand safety tools offered by DoubleVerify did not work as intended, and that ads for major brands were displayed around harmful content despite using prebidding brand safety tools. DoubleVerify stated that the findings were “entirely manufactured” and that Adalytics cherry-picked problematic terms.
• In response, DoubleVerify threatened to sue advertising watchdog Check My Ads after it promoted the Adalytics report, stating that the collaboration constituted “defamation, tortious interference, and injurious falsehood.”
• But DoubleVerify isn’t the only adtech firm with concerns. Adalytics is also being sued by Colossus SSP over “defamation, injurious falsehood and false advertising” after it was the subject of an Adalytics report claiming the SSP was misrepresenting user IDs in programmatic bid requests.

Our take: The lawsuit exposes mounting conflict between ad verification firms and watchdogs, signaling to advertisers that even the industry’s guardians operate in a highly opaque and contentious space.

The case puts advertisers in a tricky position: Transparency is essential to reduce ad fraud, but the legal environment could suppress open dialogue about ad quality and waste.

There is a growing need for independent third-party audits, separate from verification vendors, to assess media buying effectiveness and fraud. Advertisers could benefit from multi-layered verification strategies that don’t rely on a single partner and monitoring public discourse around their media partners to prepare for a response plan if issues emerge.