Decentralized Moderation
Last updated
Last updated
Problems associated with ad fraud, viewability, and quality have always been difficult to prove and track down, even with automated scanning tools. Perpetrators are highly motivated to circumvent advertising policies for their own gain.
A similar problem exists in the field of creating decentralized consensus for blockchains. One popular method is called Proof of Stake (), where network participants "stake" an economic unit as bond for their good behavior. Others can then verify, and if necessary, challenge the behavior. If successful, the a portion of the bond is then transferred to the successful challenger.
PTAL will apply a similar mechanism, where:
Advertisers and publishers must publicize their advertising standards, which may be a whitelist or a blacklist. These policies can include: sensitive topics, politics, adult materials, prescription drugs, etc. The advertising standard itself is not moderated.
The campaign spending is held as stake, guarding against policy violations and fraud from advertisers and publishers. After a period without successful challenges, the spending is released to the publisher per the agreed upon rate and the delivery of valid performance
Anyone can be a moderator and use any method available to them to verify:
If the advertiser or publisher have violated their stated advertising policy
If the advertising itself is misleading, or improperly delivered
Challenges are sent to a queue, where a group of randomly selected moderators will assess each challenge and vote to accept or reject the challenge. Based on the decision, the advertisement is deemed proper or improper and the appropriate action taken.
The data is then written onto the blockchain, forming the basis for advertiser / publisher reputation and creating additional data transparency. Advertisers and publishers alike will be able to see the history of challenges and quality issues associated with every campaign.
We want to use a mechanism that has proven itself with real world use cases and something that the blockchain community is familiar with. From the advertiser or publisher perspective, this is no different than Google or Facebook doing moderation in their own ad networks.
