Written by Hunter Gebron

Ads.txt is an IAB Tech Lab initiative that was first introduced in May 2017. It is designed to root out fraudulent sellers and resellers across the programmatic supply chain; a significant challenge advertisers face when buying inventory on the open exchange, especially as fraud evolves to become ever more sophisticated.

Ads.txt offers a simple and effective technical solution for publishers and content owners to list the authorized sellers of their inventory in a .txt file served from within the root path of their domain’s web server.

An ads.txt record can be accessed by merely visiting a domain with the file that we are requesting, in this case ‘ads.txt’, being appended to the end of the root domain, e.g. metax.io/ads.txt. These records can be more efficiently indexed at scale by running a web-crawler. DSPs, in this case, can scrape ads.txt records to compile a list of authorized sellers for each content owner. The list can then be cross-referenced with inventory on the open exchange. The idea is that if you are buying programmatically from a seller or reseller that isn’t listed on the content owner’s ads.txt file, then chances are it is illegitimate, and you probably don’t want to purchase it.

What is Ads.txt Plus?

Ads.txt Plus, is a decentralized application (DApp) currently deployed on the Ethereum testnet that leverages the blockchain to supplement ads.txt. We built a simple UI to enable publishers to add their sellers to the blockchain and for buyers to search for their respective publishers. You can export the files to use on your webserver and can also programmatically access the DApp via an API.

This is the first open source DApp that enables the digital advertising community to write to the testnet using test token and experience a full blockchain experience. We used the well respected Ads.txt standard for this as the industry has rallied behind the utility and we thought it would also be a great first introduction to the Ethereum blockchain.

Additionally, the adChain Registry is available for use on the Ethereum testnet as well. The adChain Registry is a community curated index for media participants across the entire industry. The community uses a cryptocurrency called adToken (ADT) to self-govern the membership roster in a democratic process. We envisage Ads.txt Plus to act as a stepping stone towards broader blockchain adoption of more advanced crypto systems — like the adChain Registry.

MetaX is committed to bringing blockchain solutions to the ad industry. Ads.Txt Plus is a free, open source initiative provided for the benefit of the entire digital advertising ecosystem. To that end we have built the adChain Help Center and robust documentation to help you through the process and we are excited to do our part to introduce new technology into the digital advertising space through open source methods. As part of the IAB Tech Lab’s blockchain working group, we will continue to develop blockchain utilities for the industry that increase transparency and provide true value for the digital advertising community.