NEW YORK, Feb. 28, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- AppNexus, the world leader in real-time advertising technology, announced today at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting a new advertising industry initiative to combat piracy on the Internet.  As part of the initiative, AppNexus is making a firm public commitment to actively monitor traffic and refuse to allow clients to run ads on those sites that are found to feature pirated intellectual property. Microsoft Advertising and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) are among the first organizations to officially support the effort.

Although many online advertising companies have anti-piracy policies already in existence, the enforcement rate is lower than ideal. AppNexus'  initiative is designed to encourage other industry leaders to promote similar guidelines in their own business practices, increase financial pressure on "torrent" sites and attract additional public commitment to the cause from around the industry.

AppNexus CEO Brian O'Kelley said, "AppNexus maintains that advertising has a higher purpose as the lifeblood of the free Internet.  It's time for the advertising industry to take a strong stand and to stop putting money in the pockets of those facilitating piracy.  Most of us in the industry believe that the proposed SOPA legislation was the wrong direction for the Internet, and would rather encourage all those in the online space to self-regulate. As for advertising, it should be a force for good and not a means to elevate rogue players." 

"One of the reasons we decided to power the Microsoft Advertising Exchange with the AppNexus platform was because of its focus on providing a brand-safe environment for both buyers and sellers of online inventory," said Dave O'Hara, chief operating officer, Microsoft Advertising.  "Microsoft offers some of the highest quality inventory on the Internet today, and we have a great deal of trust in how AppNexus operates its technology platform. We strongly support AppNexus' anti-piracy initiative."

Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the IAB said, "Ad technology has become a new and increasingly important segment for the IAB and just this morning we announced the newly-created IAB Ad Tech Council to help address this important ecosystem's needs.  We're thrilled to see AppNexus and Microsoft Advertising take a leadership position on the issue of online piracy.  We see this as a 'call to arms' for the rest of the industry and it's our sincere hope that others in the space will follow this example."

About AppNexus

AppNexus is the world leader in real-time advertising technology, serving the largest and most innovative buyers and sellers of online advertising, including Microsoft Advertising Exchange, Collective and Technorati Media.  Led by the pioneers of the Web's original ad exchanges at Yahoo!'s Right Media and Google's DoubleClick, AppNexus offers the industry's most advanced technology platform that empowers companies to build, manage and optimize their entire online advertising businesses.  Based in New York City, AppNexus is backed by an outstanding group of investors including Microsoft, Venrock, Kodiak Venture Partners, First Round Capital, Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz and Ron Conway.  For more information, visit www.appnexus.com.

SOURCE AppNexus