• by Tobi Elkin  @tobielkin, July 20, 2016

Aiming to offer more transparency in the digital advertising supply chain, Dun & Bradstreet on Wednesday  announced a partnership with the Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) to help vet and verify the identities of digital advertising buyers, sellers, and intermediary companies applying to participate in the TAG Registry.

Dun & Bradstreet will use the D-U-N-S number to enable the "Verified by TAG" process, TAG's proprietary background check. When companies pass the check, they are approved as "TAG Registered" and legitimate businesses.  

"In an era with so many digital touchpoints available for customers to engage with your business, protecting your brand and your marketing investments has never been more important," stated Bob Carrigan, CEO of Dun & Bradstreet.  

Companies applying to be "TAG Registered" will be vetted by Dun & Bradstreet. The results of that verification are provided to TAG for final review and approval. Companies are then matched against Dun & Bradstreet's commercial database of more than 250 million business records and vetted against data such as address, contact names, and emails to verify that companies, and their associated connections, are who they say they are.

A study conducted by White Ops and the Association of National Advertisers estimates that advertisers stand to lose $7.2 billion globally to fraudulent online accounts this year alone.