Internet ad firms to deny ad revenue to websites violating IP laws

In lockstep with the White House and the Internet Advertising Bureau, a group of internet advertising companies has agreed to comply with a newly published set of best practices aimed at denying ad revenue for websites that violated intellectual property laws.

Adtegrity, 24/7 Media, AOL, Condé Nast, Google, Microsoft, SpotXchange and Yahoo have agreed to policies that would ban participation of websites selling counterfeit goods or the unlawful distribution of copyrighted material, in ad network advertising programmes, when such websites lacked significant lawful uses.

According to Victoria Espinel, US intellectual property enforcement coordinator, who wrote in a blog post, the Obama administration saw the acceptance of the guidelines as a positive step that could help cut online copyright violations and the sale of counterfeit goods. She also stressed that such efforts needed to be undertaken in a manner that was consistent with all applicable laws and with the administration's broader internet policy principles emphasising privacy, free speech, fair process and competition.

According to commentators, the concern was well-founded, as private sector cooperation with law enforcement, whether voluntary or compelled, could be controversial or unlawful.

For instance, the American Civil Liberties Union last month filed a lawsuit alleging that the National Security Agency's collection of phone call data from Verizon was violated of US law.

With the initiative, copyright holders from the music, film and other creative industries would be able to alert the big ad networks if their ads were appearing on sites offering links to pirated content or counterfeit goods.

The British music industry body, the BPI, was also working with Internet Advertising Bureau in the UK on a scheme that was to be announced yet, but which would see the building up of a central database of piracy sites for ad networks, agencies and brands for reference and avoidance while planning campaigns.

Pirate sites often made huge amounts of money from Google and other advertisers as millions of users visited their sites every month. They also had the kind of age profile that web advertisers were keen to reach.

Surfthechannel, a British site linking with pirated content, pulled in as much as £35,000 per month from on-site adverts before the owner ended up behind bars.

According to a study by the University of Southern California's Annenberg Innovation Laboratory in January, Google and Yahoo were two of the biggest advertisers on pirate sites, and though both companies included clauses in their contracts forbidding sites from displaying their ads if they helped piracy, the responsibility for checking lay mostly with the owner of pirated content.