On a blustery January day, marketplace quality specialists, security professionals, and digital media practitioners gathered at Index Exchange’s NYC office in World Trade Center 3 to discuss how they could better serve consumers. The 2025 Digital Trust and Safety Summit brought together folks from across digital media and adtech who realize that it’s not only their responsibility to protect consumers from bad actors and earn their trust—it’s also quite good for business.
Some highlights:
During the opening keynote, Dennis Colón of Jiffy.ai discussed how cultivating consumer relationships had been central to building out digital revenue programs at Condé Nast and CBS, and how his own external community building efforts influenced both his management style and his approach to digital audiences. He closed with discussing practical uses for AI, including automating menial tasks in setting up campaigns (TMT knows something automating creative QA—with AI assistance, of course).
TMT Digital Security and Operations Director Pat Ciavolella, the Wizard of Malware Prevention, detailed how the proliferation of AI is both helping threat actors scale efforts and security professionals discover their bad deeds and shut them down. He also discussed the impact of phishing attacks invading programmatic video and the bold StringRipper attack that takes cloaking and evasion to new heights (download the conference summary below for more takeaways)
Therran Oliphant of Flashtalking by MediaOcean shared passionate opinions about advertiser responsibility in ensuring consumer trust and safety (as we’ve noted, when advertiser landing pages get hacked, malware is a brand safety problem), while Michael Yeon of Admiral explained how publishers use technology to start dialogues with audiences and the revenue benefits of these enhanced relationships.
The practitioner panel—featuring Jade Grodesky from Index Exchange, Jackie Cooper of Liftoff Mobile, and Linda Chen of Chegg—delved into how better management of demand partners (including some tough conversations) Still, lack of transparency in demand chains caused too many headaches, and these professionals were having to make tough choices when it came to acceptable ad formats and content.
Finally, Ken Westbrook, Founder and CEO of the Stop Scams Alliance, shared his personal experience with digital scammers, and alongside Chris Olson, CEO of The Media Trust, discussed how regulators are examining consumer safety online—and also how the digital media and adtech world can evolve to avoid harsh legislation.
It was a memorable day of discussion that you too can be a part of—fill in the form below to download key slides from the presentation.
Photos from the event:
