Forbes has come a long way down since the days of Malcolm Forbes, Sr. He did many exposes of bad business practices.  Forbes is now owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments of Hong Kong.<p>If you&#x27;re not that familiar with how ad serving works today, watch this IAB video.[1]  Note how the online auction process works.  After information about the user (location, demographics, income level, previous purchases, what user has looked at) has been obtained from a data provider, that info is submitted to an ad exchange.  Advertisers then have an opportunity to bid for placing an ad in that space, and have 10ms to bid.<p>But sometimes, no advertiser bids in that round. The ad space is now &quot;remnant space&quot; - ad space where all the big advertisers declined to buy. Remnant space is very cheap, maybe 5% of premium space.  The first ad exchange goes out to a second lower-tier ad exchange, where the cycle repeats, at a lower price point.  That&#x27;s where junky ads and malware get inserted. Remnant-space sellers include Rubicon, PubMatic, and AdMeld (now owned by Google).<p>Many publishers are reluctant to set a minimum price and leave ad space unsold. Rather than fill unsold space with some non-ad content, or a house ad (Forbes running an ad for some other Forbes publication), they sell the space to one of those bottom-feeder services.  This hurts their reputation and readership, and probably isn&#x27;t worth the small revenue it generates.<p>Forbes covered the issue of ad exchange trust in 2014.[2]  Their ad people need to read their own magazine.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=-Glgi9RRuJs" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=-Glgi9RRuJs</a>
[2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.forbes.com&#x2F;sites&#x2F;roberthof&#x2F;2014&#x2F;12&#x2F;10&#x2F;can-you-trust-your-ad-exchange-new-index-may-provide-the-answer&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.forbes.com&#x2F;sites&#x2F;roberthof&#x2F;2014&#x2F;12&#x2F;10&#x2F;can-you-tru...</a>