Yesterday, The Media Trust (TMT) convened the inaugural meeting of its Product Advisory Council, bringing together senior leaders from across the advertising technology ecosystem to advance coordinated action against escalating digital threats.

The Council includes representation from industry-leading organizations including Microsoft, Amazon, Index Exchange, Freestar, BBC, Criteo, Simpli.fi, NewsUK, Disney, The Trade Desk, Mail Metro Media, and Future as well as senior TMT Commercial and Security Desk leaders.

"The formation of the Product Advisory Council comes at a pivotal moment for the digital media industry as threat actors have increasingly weaponized the tools and complexity of the digital landscape against consumers. As advertising increasingly intersects with cybersecurity, privacy regulation, and geopolitical risk, digital threat management has become a strategic priority and critical responsibility on media companies," said Leon Gurevich, CRO, the Media Trust.

Members acknowledge that effective threat management is not only an obligation, but a strategic imperative to unilaterally protect consumers, revenue, and brand against threat of liability. According to a survey conducted ahead of the meeting, 84% identified digital threat management as a top priority for 2026, with consumer protection seen as a strategic point of commercial differentiation and advantage.

A Coordinated Approach to Industry-Wide Risk

The Council’s inaugural session focused on the evolving threat landscape, including malvertising, cloaked creatives, redirects, fraud operations, and emerging forms of abuse exploiting the programmatic supply chain.

Participants aligned on several critical priorities:

• The need for proactive, real-time threat detection and policy enforcement
• Greater industry-wide data sharing to identify and address common patterns and bad actors
• Leveraging trusted intermediaries to aggregate and analyze threat intelligence
• Coordinated enforcement to prevent malicious activity at its source

Members emphasized that fragmented defenses are no longer sufficient. Instead, the industry must adopt a collaborative model where intelligence, enforcement strategies, and technical signals are shared to strengthen collective resilience.

Leveraging Trusted Infrastructure

The Council explored how TMT’s global threat detection infrastructure and Malware Desk expertise can be further leveraged to:

• Identify and block malicious creatives in real time
• Track recurring fraud operations across multiple properties
• Share actionable intelligence to reduce ecosystem-wide exposure
• Shut down coordinated threat campaigns more effectively

Members agreed to collaborate on focused areas of opportunity to help influence dynamic ad fraud management, policy enforcement, and an intelligence sharing framework.

Strengthening the Free and Open Internet

The Media Trust Product Advisory Council was established with a mission to elevate consumer protection and help ensure support for an open and free Internet. By uniting leaders across AdTech, publishers, and global brands, the Council aims to improve enforcement and protect consumers from increasingly sophisticated online threats.

“Trust is now a strategic imperative,” said Chris Olson, CEO of The Media Trust. “No single company can solve this alone. The future of responsible advertising depends on collective intelligence, coordinated enforcement, and proactive defense. This Council represents a meaningful step forward in strengthening the security and integrity of the digital ecosystem.”

The Council will meet throughout 2026, with working groups delivering collaborative initiatives and actionable recommendations.

About The Media Trust

The Media Trust is a global leader in digital trust and safety, providing real-time threat detection and mitigation across advertising, publishing, and digital ecosystems. With more than two decades of expertise and proprietary AI-driven monitoring technology, The Media Trust helps organizations eliminate malvertising, protect consumers, and safeguard digital revenue while strengthening trust across the open internet. Learn more at: www.mediatrust.com.

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