As a media buyer, I find myself scratching my head about the IAB’s ads.txt initiative.

It’s a good thing, of course. Knowing that somebody selling advertising inventory to you is actually authorized to sell that impression to you is important.

The problem that nobody’s talking about: The digital advertising world created a dirty, disorganized, fraud-filled world. Almost nothing is what it seems to be, whether it’s the audience, the viewability, and the clicks. And even, it turns out, whether you’re buying impressions on the site you think you are.

The question is why does the ads.txt initiative even need to exist? And what is really being done to clean this up?