“Too many companies are addressing their brand safety issues in a decentralized, piecemeal, and reactive manner”, according to the Brand Safety Institute's co-founder Neal Thurman. In the context of ad misplacement on pirate websites, Thurman is right. Addressing the issue of ad misplacement in a reactionary manner is not a sufficient solution to the two fundamental issues at hand: brand equity damage and the inadvertent funding of illegal websites.The complex and non-transparent nature of programmatic advertising means brands have often inadvertently served millions of impressions to pirate websites before they are even aware of the issue. By that time brand reputational damage may have already occurred and the illegal operators have their money.A reactive solution is needed to fix the damage caused, but to ensure that ad misplacement on pirate websites is avoided in the future, brands and advertising companies must adopt proactive and dynamic tools.Proactive tools – such as infringing website lists and static blacklists – are currently being used by both brands and advertisers. However, these tools cannot compete with the dynamism found within the pirate domain ecosystem.Pirate domains are constantly hopping to new domain names to avoid detection, as well as setting up mirroring domains to dilute their audience base among many different domain names.Blacklists that do not address these evasion techniques used by pirate websites leave advertisers at risk of ad misplacement.This risk is demonstrable. whiteBULLET found that out of the top 100 global companies by ad expenditure, 70 had their branded advertising appear on piracy sites in 2017. Many of these brands are actively using IWLs and static blacklists, but these lists have failed to protect them from placing ads on pirate websites.whiteBULLET’s IPI Index is the proactive tool that can tackle the dynamism of the pirate domain ecosystem. The IPI Index is the most up-to-date watchlist of high risk pirate websites available on the market. Using machine learning, the IPI Index scores and rescores millions of URLs on an hourly basis for IP risk, whilst also automatically detecting any domains which are engaged in evasion techniques such as domain hopping.The IPI Index can be utilised by brands and advertisers alike. Brands can use the watchlists to inform advertising partners what sites they want to avoid, whilst ad companies can integrate the IPI Index into their platform, giving buyers the option of comprehensive protection from their ads being served to IP infringing websites.The IPI Index is the proactive tool that ensures no reactionary tools are required. Contact whiteBULLET to make use of our IPI Index today. info@white-bullet.com