It has become clear that Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. have advertised on sites that publish child pornography
Google, Amazon, and Microsoft offer online advertising services, including
Executive Summary - Are ad tech vendors facilitating or monitoring ads on a website that hosts Child Sexual Abuse Material?
https://adalytics.io/blog/adtech-vendors-csam
Full Report - Are ad tech vendors facilitating or monitoring ads on a website that hosts Child Sexual Abuse Material?
https://adalytics.io/blog/adtech-vendors-csam-full-report
Amazon, Google accused of monetizing illegal content • The Register
https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/08/amazon_google_accused_of_monetizing/
How big tech's ad systems helped fund child abuse online - EsstN
https://esstnews.com/2025/02/08/how-big-techs-ad-systems-helped-fund/
Blackburn, Blumenthal Probe Amazon & Google After New Report Reveals They Placed...
https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/2025/2/issues/technology/blackburn-blumenthal-probe-amazon-google-after-new-report-reveals-they-placed-ads-on-website-that-hosts-child-sexual-abuse-material
Lawmakers Demand Answers From Ad Tech Vendors Allegedly Monetizing CSAM | AdExchanger
https://www.adexchanger.com/marketers/lawmakers-demand-answers-from-ad-tech-vendors-allegedly-monetizing-csam/
Senators Decry Adtech Failures as Ads Appear On CSAM Site
https://www.adweek.com/media/senators-accuse-google-amazon-monetizing-child-abuse-content/
ImgBB is a free, ad-supported image sharing site. The site does not require users to register before uploading and sharing photos on the platform. According to Adalytics, the operators of ImgBB intentionally hide their ownership, including by compiling the WHOIS , which verifies the ownership of a domain name.
According to a third party who provided information to Adalytics, ImgBB receives more than 40 million page views per month, which is more than
ImgBB — Free Smileys / Anime Emocons
While investigating how US government ads are being served to bots and crawlers, Adalytics stumbled upon a case where a bot called URLScan.io was archiving digital ads for major advertisers, archiving ImgBB pages that appeared to display sexually explicit images of young children. In other words, US government ads were being served to ImgBB pages where sexually explicit images of young children had been uploaded.
Adalytics immediately reported the page to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), special agents from the Department of Homeland Security, the National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children, and the Canadian Child Protection Centre, which investigated the page and determined it 'meets the definition of child sexual abuse material ( CSAM )' under Canadian law.
In addition, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children revealed that it sent dozens of notices to ImgBB that it was hosting CSAM in 2021, 2022, and 2023. In addition, Reddit appears to have blocked ImgBB's photo sharing links because ImgBB is hosting CSAM.
Not only did ImgBB allow users to upload photos anonymously without registering, but it also used the ' noindex ' tag to exclude content from being indexed, preventing users from finding certain photos in search engines like Google and Bing.
Adalytics pointed out that ImgBB 'hosts not only CSAM, but also explicit adult content and potentially copyright infringing content. In addition, it also hosted content that could be construed as animal cruelty and content depicting bestiality between dogs and humans.'
Adalytics' research into ImgBB reveals that the service generates revenue by displaying digital ads from ad tech vendors such as Amazon, Google, Criteo, Quantcast, Microsoft, Outbrain, TripleLift, Zeta Global and Nexxen. However, available data samples from third-party research studies also reveal that Google Ad Exchange, Google Ad Manager and DV360 were not actively transacting ads on ImgBB as of January 2025.
According to Adalytics' investigation, it was found that major advertisers have been placing ads on ImgBB, which hosts a certain amount of CSAM, since at least 2021. These 'major advertisers' include not only the government agency Department of Homeland Security, but also the Texas State Government, Arizona State University, Mastercard, Starbucks, PepsiCo, Honda, Uber Eats, Google Pixel, Amazon Prime, PUMA, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), Adobe, HP, L'Oreal, Acer, Domino's Pizza, Samsung, and others.
Major advertisers who have placed ads on ImgBB have reported that ad tech vendors such as Amazon 'do not provide advertisers with features or reports that allow them to accurately investigate which pages their ads were placed on.' In response to this, Adalytics pointed out that 'for sites that use 'noindex' tags like ImgBB to prevent images from appearing on Google search and Bing search result pages, it is not possible to verify the content unless you know the exact page URL to be verified.'
In addition, several major advertisers have reported to Adalytics that their brand safety vendors have reported that 100% of ad impressions measured by ImgBB were marked as 'brand safe' or 'suitable for the brand.' Therefore, Adalytics also points out the dysfunction of brand safety vendors.
Meanwhile, ad brand safety vendors DoubleVerify and IAS , used by major advertisers such as FanDuel, Arizona State University and Thrive Market, were found to be measuring and monitoring ads that appeared on pages featuring sexually explicit content on ImgBB.
Ad tech vendors like Amazon and Google claim to have quality policies for their media inventory, but Adalytics noted that 'it's unclear to what extent those policies are actually enforced, given that ads for major brands and the U.S. government are being seen on a website known to have hosted CSAM for over three years (ImgBB).'
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in Web Service, Posted by logu_ii