Tuesday, August 25th, 2026 – 12:35 am
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When news broke that ICE had issued a request for information asking how ad tech providers could support its investigations, the industry reacted with alarm. Executives like Brian O’Kelley of Scope3 warned publicly about what it could mean if the same infrastructure used to target ads is used to track and identify individuals. These are legitimate concerns, and the stakes at hand are serious.
For me, however, the story surfaced a different, familiar concern.
I’ve spent years watching a version of this dynamic play out inside ad tech’s verification industry. The details are not the same, nor are the consequences, and I want to be clear that I am not drawing a direct link between immigration enforcement and ad verification. But the structural problem, which includes power exercised without consent, accountability or any agreed-upon framework, is one publishers know intimately.
