Re: A simple answer
Always wondered about this. Given that the "pool" of ad and revenue mapping is actually a pretty awful murky swamp, I don't think you'd need to inject much fresh sewerage in a very overt, public way to draw attention to how poor the revenue spend is tracked.
Actually, I suspect you'd just need to say that you've build a bot farm and are spewing in millions of fake clicks and no one could disprove it. Lack of credibility would drive down ad revenue pretty quickly. A bit like a run on a market, it's knowing that markets are based on (mostly misplaced) confidence, remove the confidence and watch the tumble. Right now ad buying business are just paying cause others are, not because they are getting ROI.