Experts tell Vermont committee real‑time bidding exposes resident data, wastes ad dollars

The Vermont House Committee on Commerce & Economic Development heard testimony Feb. 4 from advertising and privacy experts who said programmatic real‑time bidding (RTB) creates privacy risks and economic waste for small advertisers and publishers.

"The $750,000,000,000 digital ad industry is the main business model of the Internet," said Ariel Garcia, chief operating officer of Check My Ads Institute, during testimony to the committee, arguing that the market now concentrates power with a handful of large companies and numerous ad‑tech intermediaries. Garcia said less than half of every dollar spent on programmatic advertising reaches publishers, that roughly 30¢ of each dollar is absorbed by intermediaries and that over $84,000,000,000 in global ad fraud has been documented.

Rowdy Erwin, a media director who demonstrated the RTB process for the committee, said the split‑second auction that places a single ad can broadcast a user’s device ID, GPS coordinates and inferred attributes to hundreds of bidders. "This entire process takes roughly 100 milliseconds," Erwin said, walking the committee through bid requests, data‑broker enrichment, the broadcast to bidders, the bidding algorithm and post‑delivery tracking pixels that allow cross‑site tracking.

Witnesses described two concrete harms for local advertisers and audiences. First, small Vermont businesses lack the budget and technical tools to participate in advanced buying and verification systems, meaning they often pay intermediaries while getting limited return. Garcia described a Check My Ads test campaign run through Google's Performance Max that the platform reported generated 34 signups but that the nonprofit’s CRM recorded five actual signups.

Second, witnesses said the RTB supply chain exposes consumer data to many parties—often with low data quality—creating privacy risks even when demographic or health inferences are incorrect. "Even if it's right or wrong, it can still create consequences," Garcia said, warning the committee that inaccurate audience segments can enable discriminatory or harmful uses.

Committee members asked whether programmatic systems place legitimate ads on illegal or harmful sites. Garcia and Erwin said opaque placement reporting, fraud and weak platform due diligence can allow placements on problematic sites, and neither small advertisers nor many platforms routinely verify every placement.

The committee recessed for lunch and planned to reconvene at 1:00 p.m.

Provenance: testimony and demonstration by Ariel Garcia and Rowdy Erwin (transcript SEG 022–SEG 451).