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Responsible Advertising: Protecting People and Restoring Trust

The Breakdown of Trust in Digital Advertising

Digital advertising has become one of the most powerful forces shaping online experiences, yet it has also become one of the least trusted. Over the past decade, the model has shifted toward behavioral tracking, opaque targeting systems, and large-scale programmatic placement, often prioritizing engagement and revenue over user safety and transparency.

This shift has created a system where consumers are exposed to deceptive content, fraudulent actors, and manipulative messaging, while advertisers face growing inefficiencies, brand risk, and lack of control over where their content appears.

According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, consumers reported $12.5 billion in fraud losses in 2024, with more than $3 billion linked to scams originating online. Social and digital platforms have been repeatedly identified as primary channels for these activities, prompting increased regulatory scrutiny and enforcement. (Source 1)

The regulatory pressure on digital advertising has accelerated. In April 2026, the FTC filed antitrust complaints against all five major advertising holding companies, WPP, Publicis, Dentsu, Omnicom, and IPG, alleging unlawful collusion through industry trade bodies to establish coordinated brand safety standards. All five companies are now subject to FTC consent orders prohibiting that coordination. The industry's policy-based response to advertising quality problems has been adjudicated as anticompetitive. (Source 5)

Key Risks Facing Consumers

Fraudulent Advertising and Scams

Consumers are increasingly exposed to fraudulent advertisements promoting fake businesses, impersonation schemes, and deceptive offers. These ads often appear legitimate and are designed to exploit trust, leading to financial loss and identity theft.

Counterfeit and Unsafe Goods

The OECD estimates that global trade in counterfeit goods reached approximately $467 billion, highlighting the scale of the problem. Online advertising systems have enabled counterfeit sellers to reach consumers directly, often without sufficient verification or oversight. (Source 2)

Behavioral Tracking and Data Exploitation

Modern advertising systems frequently rely on extensive data collection, tracking user behavior across platforms to build detailed profiles. These profiles are then used to target ads, often without clear consent or understanding, raising concerns about privacy and surveillance based pricing. The FTC has also warned that personal data can be used to shape individualized offers and prices. (Source 3)

Misinformation and Manipulated Content

Advertising ecosystems have also contributed to the spread of misleading claims, fake reviews, and manipulated endorsements. These practices erode trust and make it increasingly difficult for consumers to distinguish between legitimate and deceptive content.

Attention Manipulation and Platform Design

Many platforms optimize for engagement, using algorithmic systems to maximize time spent and ad exposure. This creates environments that can feel overwhelming, intrusive, and disconnected from the user’s actual intent.

Key Challenges Facing Advertisers

Ad Fraud and Invalid Traffic

Advertisers lose billions annually to fraudulent impressions, click farms, and bot driven activity. These practices distort performance metrics and reduce the effectiveness of advertising spend.

Lack of Transparency in Ad Placement

Programmatic advertising systems often involve multiple intermediaries, making it difficult for advertisers to know where their ads are placed and how budgets are allocated.

Brand Safety Risks

Ads may appear alongside harmful, misleading, or inappropriate content, creating reputational risk and weakening consumer trust in the brand.

Measurement and Attribution Challenges

Accurately measuring performance across platforms remains a persistent challenge, with inconsistent metrics and limited visibility into true engagement.

Declining Consumer Trust

As trust in digital platforms declines, advertising effectiveness is reduced. Consumers are less likely to engage with ads in environments they perceive as unsafe or manipulative.

How Squares 9 Redefines Advertising

Squares 9 was built to address these challenges at the structural level. The platform is designed around privacy, control, and contained interaction, with advertising held to the same standard as every other element of the member experience.

Privacy-First Advertising

Advertising on Squares 9 is built on member interest categories and context. Member data belongs to the member. The foundation of surveillance-based advertising has no place in this model.

Closed-Loop Interaction Model

All interaction occurs inside private Squares, which are invitation-based environments with defined access. Advertising appears in defined areas of the platform, with personal communication fully protected and undisturbed within private Squares.

Controlled Advertising Placement

Ads appear in clearly defined areas of the platform, maintaining a clean separation between communication and advertising. Placement is transparent, consistent, and fully visible to advertisers.

Content Standards and Review

Advertising content is subject to strict standards designed to protect members from fraud, misinformation, and manipulative practices. This includes screening for deceptive claims, counterfeit goods, and unsafe offers. The FTC's 2023 orders to major platforms underscore the importance of stronger review systems for advertising tied to scams and fraudulent products. (Source 4)

Protection from Fraudulent Actors

By maintaining invitation-only membership and limiting platform access, Squares 9 protects members from the fraudulent advertisers and impersonation schemes that thrive in open environments.

A Better Environment for Advertisers

Squares 9 also creates a more stable and trustworthy environment for legitimate advertisers.

Responsible Advertising as a System

Responsible advertising is a system.

It requires clear boundaries, defined access, transparent policies, and a structure that prioritizes people over data extraction. At Squares 9, these principles are built into the foundation of the platform, including the Square the Earth Initiative, which permanently allocates 20 percent of all advertising inventory to qualifying nonprofit organizations working in clean air, clean oceans and waterways, global reforestation, clean water, health and well-being, humanitarian aid, and human rights and equality. This allocation is built permanently into the platform's business model.

Advertising should support the experience and inform, operating within a framework that protects both the individual and the advertiser.

Conclusion

Digital advertising can work differently. Squares 9 demonstrates that in practice, through privacy-first design, invitation-only access, verified advertisers, clean content standards, a guaranteed Verified Human Inventory, and a permanent commitment to purpose-driven organizations through the Square the Earth Initiative. The result is an environment where advertising supports trust rather than straining it.

This is what responsible advertising looks like in practice. For the full structural case, visit the Advertising as a Trust System white paper.


To understand how this fits into the Squares 9 platform, visit What Is Private Social Media And How It Works.

Sources

  • Source 1: U.S. Federal Trade Commission, New FTC Data Show a Big Jump in Reported Losses to Fraud to $12.5 Billion in 2024, March 10, 2025. View source
  • Source 2: OECD, Global trade in fake goods reached USD 467 billion, May 7, 2025. View source
  • Source 3: U.S. Federal Trade Commission, FTC Surveillance Pricing Study Indicates Wide Range of Personal Data Used to Set Individualized Consumer Prices, January 17, 2025. View source
  • Source 4: U.S. Federal Trade Commission, FTC Issues Orders to Social Media and Video Streaming Platforms Regarding Efforts to Address Surge in Advertising for Fraudulent Products and Scams, March 16, 2023. View source
  • Source 5: U.S. Federal Trade Commission, FTC Takes Action to Restore Competition in the Digital Advertising Ecosystem, April 16, 2026. View source
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