The realization that as many as 40% of video ad views may be faked by publishers has given rise to systems measuring true “viewability” for advertisers. But one ad tech vendor says ad buyers shouldn’t trust “viewability” numbers when they are produced by publishers themselves.

“The key for viewability is to make sure that the measurement is independent, that it’s third-party and that it’s MRC-accredited,” says BrightRoll engineering SVP Christopher Amen-Kroeger.

“If people are putting viewability inside their (own video) consoles and playing both player and referee, how can you trust that data?”

Ad management platform Vindico reckons four in 10 video ad views could be fraudulent. The MRC (Media Rating Council) and IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) have now defined an industry standard for measuring views that are truly generated by humans. Programmatic video ad platform BrightRoll has announced it will use Moat to produce viewability metrics.

Amen-Kroeger was interviewed at the BrightRoll Video Summit. You can find more coverage of the BrightRoll summit here. Disclaimer: BrightRoll sponsored Beet.TV’s coverage of the event.