(Press-News.org) BALTIMORE, Jan. 6, 2026—A new study published in the INFORMS journal Marketing Science has found that some of the most widely considered online advertising safety and fairness policies may actually boost ad platform revenues while improving fairness outcomes. The policies at the center of the study are around ads that are designed to help ensure that women, minorities and other protected classes are not disproportionately excluded from job, education and financial opportunities.
The study, “Is Fair Advertising Good for Platforms?,” by Di Yuan of Auburn University, Manmohan Aseri of the University of Maryland and Tridas Mukhopadhyay of Carnegie Mellon University, investigated whether policies intended to equalize exposure to economic-opportunity advertisements help or hurt ad platforms financially.
Contrary to industry assumptions, the researchers found that when platforms implement an Equal Exposure with Equal Treatment (EET) policy that requires equal per-capita ad exposure across demographic groups, competition among advertisers intensifies, increasing the total number of dollars spent on advertising.
Empirical reporting has shown that protected groups such as women and minorities are less likely to encounter job, housing or financial opportunity ads online.
Case in point is the female demographic. Because women are a highly sought-after consumer marketing demographic, it costs more online to target them with consumer advertising. But when trying to target women as a demographic for economic-opportunity advertising, it is more expensive to reach them with economic opportunity ads, so as a result they are less likely to be as exposed to those kinds of ads.
Economic-opportunity advertisers (like employers or universities), by contrast to consumer marketing brands, value all users equally but cannot simply outbid specialized retailers to ensure that women see their ads.
“This asymmetric valuation creates a systematic disparity,” said co-author Aseri. “Retailers unintentionally crowd out opportunity-focused advertisers for certain demographics, resulting in fewer job or education ads reaching those protected groups.”
The researchers modeled advertiser competition under three policies: No Restriction (NR) – Advertisers can fully target based on demographics; Equal Treatment (ET) – Economic-opportunity advertisers cannot target by demographic group; and Equal Exposure with Equal Treatment (EET) – Platforms ensure equal exposure while also prohibiting demographic targeting.
While Equal Treatment is widely implemented by platforms as a result of regulatory pressure, the study showed this approach often fails to solve the problems associated with ads simply not reaching their target. In fact, the researchers found that in some cases “equal treatment” ads performed worse than if there were no restrictions at all.
“Equal treatment alone doesn’t fix the competitive imbalance,” said co-author Yuan. “Our analysis shows that it can even reduce platform profits and fail to close the exposure gap between protected and regular users.”
Under the EET policy, however, platforms that commit to boosting the effective ad budgets of economic-opportunity advertisers only when necessary to equalize exposure tend to do better. The study authors found that the mere existence of this rule changes advertiser behavior, reducing “market segmentation” that previously let advertisers avoid competing directly.
As a result, advertisers spend more aggressively, platforms earn more total advertising revenue, and protected class demographics equal and increased exposure to economic-opportunity ads.
“This is a rare case where fairness and profit objectives are aligned,” said Mukhopadhyay. “By removing the incentive to differentiate across demographic groups, competition itself provides the solution.”
About Marketing Science and INFORMS
Marketing Science is a premier peer-reviewed scholarly marketing journal focused on research using quantitative approaches to study all aspects of the interface between consumers and firms. It is published by INFORMS, the world’s largest association for professionals and students in operations research, AI, analytics, data science and related disciplines.
INFORMS serves as a global authority in advancing cutting-edge practices and fostering an interdisciplinary community of innovation. With a network of more than 12,000 members across academia, industry and government, INFORMS connects thought leaders and emerging professionals who apply science and technology to solve complex challenges and drive better decision-making.
Through its prestigious journals, world-class conferences, certification programs, and professional resources, INFORMS empowers its community to enhance operational efficiency, elevate organizational performance and promote smarter decisions for a better world.
Discover more at www.informs.org
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To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.52230)
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To ...
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