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Online Safety Act exacerbates publishers’ ‘dark traffic’ problem
VPN adoption triggered by new age verification rules blinds advertisers and deepens the monetisation crisis for UK digital media
While the trigger for the VPN boom may have been users wanting to watch porn without uploading a selfie, new behaviours engendered by the shift could have lasting consequences for publishers, platforms and advertisers already struggling to monetise their audiences. As a result, these giants can continue offering targeted ads with confidence and may even gain from the shift, as advertisers divert spend from ‘dark’ open web environments into places where reach and attribution still function. Just as publishers were beginning to find ways to stand on their own outside the walled garden s, the VPN boom triggered by the Online Safety Act kneecaps them, herding advertisers straight back into the arms of Big Tech, where identity is controlled, visibility is gated and monetisation remains a privilege of scale.
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