MAM
The Trade Desk says Omnicom audit finds no discrepancies amid Publicis dispute
Big Four review finds no issues while rival flags hidden fees, fuelling industry-wide scrutiny of ad tech pricing
NEW YORK: The battle over ad tech transparency is heating up. Omnicom has ordered a third-party audit of The Trade Desk, even as rival Publicis Groupe doubles down on allegations of hidden fees, dragging the demand-side platform into a widening industry reckoning.
According to reports by AdAge and Campaign Asia-Pacific, Omnicom informed clients it had commissioned an independent review of The Trade Desk’s contracts and billing practices, a move triggered by Publicis Groupe’s earlier audit that claimed to have uncovered undisclosed charges linked to certain features and services.
Omnicom said the audit, to be conducted by one of the Big Four accounting firms, is aimed at independently verifying how The Trade Desk structures and prices its services. The identity of the auditor has not been disclosed.
The Trade Desk, however, has sought to steady nerves. The company confirmed the review, describing it as routine oversight within a long-standing partnership built on “shared commitments to transparency, innovation and performance”. It added that Omnicom Media’s ongoing analyses and reviews “have not identified any issues”.
That stands in stark contrast to Publicis Groupe’s findings. The French holding company had appointed FirmDecisions to conduct its audit and subsequently advised clients to avoid using The Trade Desk’s platform, alleging that fees had been improperly applied, including to tools clients were automatically enrolled into.
The Trade Desk pushed back, questioning the credibility of FirmDecisions as an auditor and disputing the claims. It said certain data requested during the audit could not be shared due to confidentiality obligations tied to contracts with other holding companies and third parties.
At the centre of the storm is Jeff Green, founder and chief executive of The Trade Desk, who has publicly defended the company’s model. In a LinkedIn post, Green said the platform was built to be “transparent and buyer-aligned”, insisting it had not failed any audit. He also rejected demands for broader disclosure, citing “ambiguous audit rights” and confidentiality constraints.
Green did not hold back on the wider ecosystem either, arguing that parts of the industry publicly champion transparency while benefiting from inefficiencies in programmatic trading. He also criticised agency practices such as principal media buying, where inventory is resold at a markup, underscoring long-simmering tensions.
The dispute comes at a time when the economics of ad tech are shifting fast. Agencies, which control vast programmatic budgets, are under pressure to cut costs and are increasingly exploring direct relationships with publishers and connected television platforms to streamline supply paths. Meanwhile, heavyweight platforms such as Amazon and Google have squeezed fees, making it harder for independent players to compete.
The Trade Desk has positioned itself as a neutral alternative to these walled gardens, arguing that unlike Amazon and Google, it does not own media properties competing for advertiser spend. Yet its recent push to engage brands directly has unsettled agency partners, further straining ties.
What began as a technical audit has now snowballed into a full-blown industry flashpoint. With Omnicom finding no issues, Publicis crying foul and The Trade Desk digging in, the fight over transparency, pricing and power in programmatic advertising is no longer simmering in the background. It is out in the open, and it is only getting louder.
Brands
Google secures AP discom licence to power $15bn Vizag AI hub
First-of-its-kind move gives tech giant grid control for massive 1GW campus
VISAKHAPATNAM: Google has secured a rare electricity distribution company licence in Andhra Pradesh, marking a decisive shift from being just a power consumer to becoming a power distributor for its upcoming mega data centre hub in Visakhapatnam.
The move effectively rewrites the rulebook for hyperscalers in India. Instead of relying on state utilities, Google will be able to procure electricity directly from generators, including its own renewable sources. This not only cuts out intermediaries but also gives the company tighter control over supply, reliability and long-term costs.
For a business where electricity can account for up to 60 per cent of operating expenses, the economics are hard to ignore. Even more critical is uptime. Data centres demand near-perfect reliability, and owning the distribution layer allows Google to manage outages and load balancing with far greater precision.
At the heart of the plan is a sprawling 1-gigawatt data centre ecosystem spread across more than 600 acres in three locations near Vizag. With an estimated investment of $15 billion over five years, the project is set to become India’s largest single foreign direct investment and Google’s biggest AI-focused facility outside the United States.
The campus is being designed with artificial intelligence workloads in mind, housing the company’s custom tensor processing units to power services such as Gemini, Search and Google Cloud. In scale, the planned capacity is comparable to powering a small city.
Google is not building alone. It has partnered with Adani Infrastructure to develop the physical campuses, while Bharti Airtel will set up an international subsea cable landing station. This connectivity backbone is expected to link the hub directly to a dozen countries, ensuring low latency for global data traffic.
Vizag’s coastal location plays a key role in that strategy. It enables direct access to subsea cables and provides the large volumes of water needed for cooling data centre operations. Equally important is policy backing from the Government of Andhra Pradesh, which fast-tracked approvals and granted the uncommon discom licence to anchor the investment.
Groundbreaking is scheduled for April 28, 2026, with phased commissioning expected to begin by July 2028.
The broader signal is clear. As AI workloads surge, hyperscalers are no longer content plugging into existing infrastructure. They are beginning to build and control it. In Vizag, Google is not just setting up a data centre, it is wiring up its own future.
