HOLLYWOOD, FL — The ad-tech sector must do more to clamp down on a wave of “fake news” and ad fraud that is threatening both publishers and advertisers.

That is according to the new chair of the US branch of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).

Jim Norton was elected to the post this week in the organization that represents the online advertising industry.

“This authenticated supply chain has been a real challenge in our industry, causing a proliferation of fake news and fraud,” Norton tells Beet.TV in this video interview.

“A lot of bad actors out there are profiteering from proliferation of fake news unreliable content, using social media platforms and new ad technology. How do we weed out the bad actors? We can do a much better job.”

The IAB post is Norton’s second new industry role in just a few months. In October, Condé Nast hired him from AOL to oversee revenue operations.

His plan, revealed in January, sees cost savings, titles being grouped in to “brand collections” and “client industries”, and “publishers” of magazines replaced with “chief business officers”, with the addition of “chief industry officers”, according to reports.

Norton explains to Beet.TV: “We want to leverage the heritage of our great brands … and really apply that in a very focused way to the most important marketers in the industry.

“We want to make sure our tech platform is commensurate with those (social) distribution platforms.”

IAB CEO Randall Rothenberg has previously told Beet.TV there are too many ad-tech vendors all offering the same thing.

This video is part of a series produced at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting.   Beet.TV’s coverage of this event is sponsored by Index Exchange.  For more videos from this series, please visit this page