Your cooperation and transparency are essential to safeguarding the safety of our children. Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter.
Sincerely,
Marsha Blackburn, United States Senator
Richard Blumenthal, United States Senator
Letter to the Media Rating Council
Dear Mr. Ivie,
We write to express profound concern about Media Rating Council (MRC)-accredited entities that have participated in the delivery of advertising on a website that has been known to host child sexual abuse material (CSAM) since at least 2021, resulting in the inadvertent funding of criminal activity. The dissemination of CSAM is a heinous crime that inflicts irreparable harm on its victims. When digital advertisers place content on websites that are known to host such activity, they have in effect created a funding stream that perpetuates criminal operations and irreparable harm to our children We urge your organization to strengthen and adequately enforce its standards such that accredited vendors are no longer allowed to support the funding of CSAM and other illegal websites.
The MRC’s actions here—or at best, inaction—have raised several concerns. First, advertisers have unwittingly advertised on a website known to host CSAM, despite relying on technology vendors accredited by the MRC. DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science are MRC-accredited for various metrics, including for “Ad Verification Processes.” The MRC’s “Supplement to IAB Guidelines for the Conduct of Ad Verification” state that “[p]rocedures related to determining the legality of sources and content should include initial qualification using [i]ndustry and local sources of known illegal entities, as well as ongoing evaluation linked with ad verification results and periodic internal auditing of content sources.” The guidelines further state that “[a]d verification organizations seeking accreditation will be required to provide evidence of source vetting processes where applicable during accreditation audit processes.”
The MRC supplement also requires that “to the extent that ad verification organizations have identified illegal or illegitimate sources that are either not included in [i]ndustry or local sources of known illegal entities processes should be put in place to routinely communicate these sources to legal authorities, oversight bodies and the industry at large.”Despite these guidelines, reports indicate advertising served on imgbb.com—a website known to host CSAM since at least 2021— where MRC-accredited vendors’ DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science products were used by advertisers.
Additionally, the MRC has failed to adequately enforce its standards and investigate noncompliance, resulting in years of continued funding of CSAM and other criminal activity. This is not the first time that MRC-accredited vendors were found to have been involved in the delivery of advertising on illicit websites. Nor is this the first instance of MRC-accredited vendors that have violated the MRC’s own standards. Nevertheless, these companies have maintained their accreditation status and remain in good standing.
MRC-accredited vendors have previously pointed to their accreditation status to evade scrutiny for their failures, including where they have failed to prevent advertising from funding illegal websites. The MRC’s own public statements have spoken to its close ties to the United States government, insinuating a certain level of rigor and esteem associated with accreditation. Yet others have raised concern about the MRC’s failure to investigate or remedy non-compliance by accredited vendors, or to make clear the scope of the MRC’s accreditation.
It is imperative that your company take immediate and comprehensive action to address this issue and ensure that you are not funding these heinous crimes against children. To better understand how this occurred and to determine appropriate corrective actions, please answer the following questions by February 14, 2025: