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Content referenced in the following article may be considered not suitable for work (NSFW) and may offend some readers. The source documents contain racist, pornographic, and otherwise offensive content relevant to the topic at hand.
A report published by Adalytics today observed hundreds of the world's biggest brands appearing on websites and pages containing racial slurs, pornographic content, and worse.
As typically done with Adalytics reports, the methodology used publicly observable data to "x-ray" ads and their source code.
How many brands are included? Hundreds. For example:
"During the course of this observational research, major brands - such as Procter & Gamble, Microsoft, Lexus, Meta, Kenvue, Ikea, Mercedes Benz, Volvo, the US Navy, HP, Applebee’s, Pfizer, Disney, 3M, UPS, Nestle, Grammarly, AMC Theaters, Live Nation Entertainment, Thomas Reuters, Nestle, Marriott, The Dairy Alliance, Nintendo, Pepsi, Abbvie, T-Mobile, NBCUniversal, Mattress Firm, Amazon, Wawa, Autozone, SC Johnson, OnDeck, Sam’s Club, Hertz, Lipton, Walmart, and Prudential..." (Lifted from the Adalytics report on August 7, 2024)
What you will find in the report
- Lots of screenshots. The advertiser's ads, the offensive content, and highlights of vendor documentation. (Viewer discretion advised.)
- Source code. In an attempt to understand how the ads arrived on the pages in question, and the associated technology vendors related to each impression, you will see screenshots of the page source code.
- Fandom.com Wikis. Wiki pages from Fandom.com are the source of the majority of the screenshots in the report. However, they are not the only domain observed with similar challenges.
- Links to public documentation. Many, many links to publically available vendor and industry documentation on these topics.
