SHORT HILLS, N.J., July 20, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- With an aim to help bring transparency to the digital advertising supply chain, Dun & Bradstreet today 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 power the "Verified by TAG" process - TAG's proprietary background check - a critical, incremental step to effectively ensure that every company approved as "TAG Registered" is a legitimate business.

"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," said Bob Carrigan, CEO of Dun & Bradstreet. "With Dun & Bradstreet data, TAG can feel confident that only legitimate business entities are approved to participate in the TAG Registry. Supporting TAG in its efforts to bring transparency to online advertising aligns with Dun & Bradstreet's mission of uncovering truth from data to reveal a business' best - or riskiest - relationships."

Companies applying to be "TAG Registered" are vetted by Dun & Bradstreet, and the results of that verification are provided to TAG for final review and approval. Entities are matched against Dun & Bradstreet's leading commercial database of over 250 million business records and vetted against critical data, such as address, contact names and emails, tax ID, and other fields, to verify that companies - and their associated connections - are who they say they are. Following the vetting by Dun & Bradstreet, companies that TAG approves for participating in the TAG Registry receive a TAG-ID, a unique identifier that can be appended to digital ads, and shared with advertising partners to verify the legitimacy and reputation of the business.

"Increasing transparency is vital to fighting fraud and protecting trust in the digital advertising supply chain, and TAG Registration is the key to that effort," said TAG CEO Mike Zaneis. "We are delighted to be working with Dun & Bradstreet to leverage the world's most comprehensive source of business data to verify and approve the companies in the TAG Registry."

A recently published study conducted by White Ops and the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) estimates that advertisers stand to lose $7.2 billion globally to fraudulent online accounts this year alone, with premium high-CPM inventory and programmatic inventory at some of the greatest risk.

About the Trustworthy Accountability Group

The Trustworthy Accountability Group was created to spur transformational improvement at scale across the digital advertising ecosystem, focusing on four core areas: eliminating fraudulent traffic, combating malware, fighting ad-supported Internet piracy to promote brand integrity, and promoting brand safety through greater transparency. For more information on TAG, please visit tagtoday.net.

About Dun & Bradstreet

Dun & Bradstreet (NYSE: DNB) grows the most valuable relationships in business. By uncovering truth and meaning from data, we connect customers with the prospects, suppliers, clients and partners that matter most, and have since 1841. Nearly ninety percent of the Fortune 500, and companies of every size around the world, rely on our data, insights and analytics. For more about Dun & Bradstreet, visit DNB.com. Twitter: @DnBUS

Media Contacts:

Deborah McBride
Dun & Bradstreet
(973) 921-5714
mcbrided@dnb.com

Andrew Weinstein
(For Trust Accountability Group)
(202) 667-4967
andrewwstn[at]gmail.com

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SOURCE Dun & Bradstreet