Publicis Still Wants Humans to Be Involved in Web Advertising: "Contact the Agency by Phone"

How are digital media agencies grappling with hackers placing fake ads for legit clients on sites such as TheNewYorkTimes.com? By sending out letters to media providers asking them to pick up the phone and check with them before running suspicious ads.

Letters from Publicis units Digitas, Optimedia, MediaVest, Zenith, and Spark went out Oct. 5 to media partners (download one here). They explain that "rogue software and malicious advertising that is being placed on websites by individuals pretending to represent legitimate insertion requests." If anything looks awry, sellers are asked to "contact the agency by phone."

The Times ran a bogus ad for Vonage; users who saw it received a pop-up box warning them that they may have a virus and offering anti-virus software.

This problem is not new. Initiative sent out letters to media sellers in January after Hyundai was victimized the same way.

As AllThingsD points out, there's a certain irony in this day and age when the only way to check whether an ad is legit is for two human beings to pick up the electric telephone and actually talk to each other. (Do the under-30s still know how to do that, BTW?)