In the wake of pressure from the UK Gambling Commission and use of White Bullet's smart technology, many of the UK’s top gambling companies have drastically reduced their advertising presence on pirate websites.The UK Gambling Commission had been informed by the City of London Police's Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) that gambling companies were some of the worst offenders in terms of inadvertently funding IP infringing (pirate) websites through advertising.PIPCU launched Operation Creative in 2013 to disrupt and reduce funding to IP infringing websites. The initiative developed the Infringing Website List (IWL) – a list of IP infringing websites that brands, ad companies, and other entities could use to better inform their advertising operations.White Bullet worked closely with PIPCU’s Operation Creative , tracking locally served ads on the websites listed in the IWL and regularly identified ads for the top UK gambling companies on IWL websites.The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) implemented License condition 16 in late 2016:“You must ensure that you do not place digital advertisements on websites providing unauthorised access to copyrighted content and must take all reasonable steps to ensure that third parties with whom you contract do similar.”The primary aim behind this licensing condition was to ensure the ad budget for gambling companies was not ending up in the hands of the operators of IP infringing websites. If gambling companies fail to comply with the condition they can expect hefty fines or even the revocation of their license.To comply with this licensing condition, many of the top UK gambling companies have opted to use ad monitoring service s from White Bullet to track when their ads fall on pirate websites and then take action to stop it. Brands using this solution have on average seen a 92% reduction in the volume of their ads served to IP infringing websites over the last two years, with ads moving to safer websites.

White Bullet's ad monitoring service tracks advertising across millions of infringing URLs, categorising each ad found with a brand and a sector. White Bullet also analyses the full ad path and identifies the individual third-party affiliates and ad companies responsible for placing each ad, enabling advertisers to identify who is responsible for the misplacement of their ads.The UKGC’s licensing condition is a strong example of the increased awareness on the importance of brand safety across a range of online activity. Gambling operators, as well as brands from other industries, are beginning to realise the need for safer ad placement.Skybet recently announced it has completely abandoned the use of affiliate advertising due to the risk of non-compliant affiliate advertising. Paddy Power Betfair has taken a similar stance, implementing a one-strike policy for their affiliates and tougher compliance conditions. Outside the gambling industry, companies like Unilever have committed to pull ads from exchanges that use inventory from risky websites. However, many brands are still at risk and would benefit from improved technology to prevent the misplacement of their advertising on illegal and dangerous websites. White Bullet continues to find ads from major brands on IP infringing websites. Research recently conducted by White Bullet found that among the top global ad spenders 70% had their branded advertising appear on pirate sites in 2017. How does this happen in the current environment where brands are increasingly feeling the pressure and showing a genuine willingness to improve their ad placement? The answer can be found in the shortcomings of static blacklists.In the context of keeping advertising off IP infringing websites, the high churn rate of piracy sites means static blacklists, including any of the industry’s infringing website lists kept by legal brand safety providers, that are not maintained hourly, cannot provide comprehensive protection. Pirate websites use domain hopping and redirection to evade enforcement and quickly and regularly go offline as new domains emerge to take their place. Any static list of infringing websites will not provide true insight into this dynamic ecosystem nor the real-time guidance needed to protect brands.White Bullet's IPI Index evaluates existing and new websites for IP infringement risk on an hourly basis. Websites are dynamically scored using artificial intelligence based on a range of criteria to determine infringement risk. This dynamism ensures the IPI Index stays ahead of the high churn rate of pirate websites and is an effective tool in comprehensively identifying publishers that infringe third party intellectual property.