Improving the Observability of Platform-Based Advertising: How the Australian Ad Observatory Helps Examine and Address(?) the Healthiness of Digital Advertising

Abstract

The advertising ecosystem has been progressively reshaped by computational advertising models facilitated and controlled by digital media platforms. Platform advertising operated by dominant players Meta (Facebook) and Alphabet (Google) have been heavily criticised for using data generated by users on and off the platforms to heavily promote and target advertising for harmful and unhealthy products to vulnerable consumers. However the operations and impacts of these systems remain opaque and difficult to observe. The Australian Ad Observatory responds to this challenge by creating a methodological framework and research infrastructure integrating cultural, legal, media, and computational pe..