Pixalate

News Summary:

Pixalate on March 13, 2026, announced the general availability of its DEFASED (DElisted From the App StorE) pre-bid blocklists for Connected TV (CTV) apps, which now identify the specific countries from which each app has been delisted. This new offering aims to counter the exploitation of delisted apps from platforms such as Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Samsung, and LG, which can remain installed on devices and be used by malicious actors to generate invalid traffic (IVT) or harvest user data without platform oversight, as no automated mechanism alerts the ad ecosystem when apps are removed. Previously, on March 10, Pixalate introduced the High Risk Apps (HRA) mobile app pre-bid blocklist for the advertising industry, designed to identify dangerous and fraudulent apps by combining persistent invalid traffic signals, app store compliance indicators, app-ads.txt authorization checks, and privacy risk signals into a unified feed with nine risk reason codes. On March 8, the company published its Q4 2025 North America Invalid Traffic (IVT) & Ad Fraud Benchmark Reports, revealing that the Connected TV (CTV) IVT rate in the United States stood at 19%. This report followed the March 5 announcement of Pixalate's DEFASED pre-bid blocklists for mobile apps, which track apps delisted from Google Play and the Apple App Store, including their bundle ID, app name, and removal date across more than 100 countries.