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Ad verification firm DoubleVerify is suing Adalytics, alleging that the research and analytics firm defamed the adtech company in its March 28 report about fraudulent traffic in digital advertising.
In a lawsuit filed in a Maryland district court Monday, DoubleVerify said it wants to “hold Adalytics accountable for its malicious publication and commercial exploitation of misleading, disparaging, defamatory, and false statements concerning DoubleVerify and its business.”
In its bot traffic report from late March, Adalytics suggested that DoubleVerify’s pre-bid filters sometimes fail to block traffic from bots, even when bots disclosed that they were not real people.
Now, DoubleVerify alleges that this report falsely claimed that its systems fail to block bot traffic, misleadingly implying that advertisers are routinely charged for invalid impressions. DoubleVerify alleges that these assertions damage its reputation and were made to promote Adalytics’ products and services, since Adalytics is a for-profit company.
The lawsuit claims Adalytics “knowingly” made “false public statements to drive customers away from DoubleVerify. Accordingly, Adalytics acted with actual malice in publishing the false and misleading statements.”
An Adalytics’ spokesperson said in a statement shared with ADWEEK: “We believe this case is without merit, and we will vigorously defend our rights and ability to serve the public interest.”
The spokesperson accused DoubleVerify of trying “to shut down public discourse on important matters of concern, rather than following the example of other ad tech vendors who engage in good faith with such research.”
A DoubleVerify spokesperson told ADWEEK in a statement: “As a policy, we don’t comment on ongoing legal matters. DV has published a detailed rebuttal that makes our position clear, and we stand behind the quality and effectiveness of our solutions.”
Adalytics has published several reports that have raised concerns about the effectiveness of DoubleVerify’s brand safety and ad verification technology.
In response to a February Adalytics report about failures in the adtech supply chain that led to ads for Fortune 500 brands appearing on a site known to host child sexual abuse material, DoubleVerify rolled out updated brand safety tools and enhanced reporting that enables advertisers to view the specific URLs on which their ads are served.
But DoubleVerify later went on the offensive. The company aimed to debunk some of Adalytics’ claims about its technology and highlight concerns about Adalytics’ research methodologies in a report of its own, published April 7.
In that report, DoubleVerify also alleged that “there is a track record of Adalytics misrepresenting verification technology and data, and drawing false conclusions.”
In an attempt to get ahead of the Adalytics bot report in January, DoubleVerify called Adalytics’ assertions about its tools “misleading and manufactured.”
DoubleVerify has also taken aim at Adalytics collaborators. Last month, the company told adtech watchdog Check My Ads to prepare for litigation over alleged “defamatory statements” it made about DoubleVerify, though ADWEEK has confirmed that no legal action has yet been filed. Check My Ads has collaborated with Adalytics on efforts to advance shared goals of increasing transparency in the digital advertising ecosystem.
DoubleVerify is not the only adtech firm that has taken issue with Adalytics’ characterization of its work. Adalytics is also facing a lawsuit from Colossus SSP, filed in May of last year, over alleged “defamation, injurious falsehood and false advertising.”
Correction 5/15 at 3:35pm ET: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Adalytics’ bot report poked holes in DoubleVerify’s post-bid analysis. This is untrue. The report took issue with DoubleVerify’s pre-bid tools.
