TAG, a global initiative, has shared a list of pirate sites offering illegal streams and content of the World Cup.
A new cross-industry initiative has been launched to cut off advertising revenue from more than a thousand digital piracy sites providing illegal streams or stolen content from the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
TAG, a non-profit group set up by the global advertising industry to fight ad-related criminal activity, has compiled a list of 1,376 sites through its pirate domain exclusion list (PDEL) and shared it with intermediaries across the digital ad supply chain to prevent adspend from reaching those illegitimate sites.
Rachel Nyswander Thomas, chief operating officer of TAG, said: “Global sporting events like the World Cup are prime targets for criminals who try to intercept legitimate ad dollars by stealing popular streaming content.
“The TAG AdSec Threat Exchange has created as an early-warning system to identify and block ad revenue to websites that are profiting from stolen content, and this first-of-its-kind initiative allows us to fight those criminals in near-real time by cutting off the flow of ad dollars to the content thieves targeting the World Cup.”
TAG compiled the list through contributions from industry partners and members of the TAG AdSec Threat Exchange – a forum for sharing ad-related threat intelligence.
In addition to the domains, TAG has also identified a further 176 domains that were already on the PDEL list that were stealing World Cup content.
TAG’s demonetisation efforts has aided the US Department of Justice to seize 400 pirate domains, as part of Operation Offsides. The firm noted that while it shares common sources, the pirate domains seized by the government are distinct from the pirate domains that are being demonetised through TAG’s efforts.
