Publishers Call Out Ad-Tech Firms' Sale of Contextual Data as IP Theft

Publishers have long been wary of ad-tech firms undermining their profits through unnecessary fees and incorrect classification.

Of late, publishers have been frustrated by another ad-tech business model: the scraping of data from their websites, which ad-tech companies package into contextual segments that advertisers can use to target.

The practice is not new, but it is causing fresh consternation from publishers anxiously preparing for the deprecation of third-party cookies, which is slated for next year, four publishing industry sources told Adweek.