Glossary
Plain-English definitions for the terms you'll see across ATDb. If a tooltip leaves you wondering "what does that actually mean?" — start here.
New to the type labels? See How we classify companies.
Looking for industry terms like header bidding or SPO, or laws like GDPR? See Learn, ATDb's sourced explainers. This page covers ATDb's own labels.
Sorted alphabetically.
AdTech
Short for "advertising technology." The software, platforms, and services that move money and data through digital advertising — from the demand side (advertisers and agencies buying ads) to the sell side (publishers and platforms selling ad inventory) and everything in between (measurement, identity, fraud detection, creative production).
ATDb is a database of AdTech companies, the people running them, the deals they make, and the news that shapes the industry.
Acquired
A company status. This company was bought by another company. The acquirer owns it now. The acquired company may still operate as its own brand or product (e.g., "Instagram by Meta") or may have been folded into the parent. See operational status.
Beta wave
ATDb is in private beta. Users join in batched "waves." Wave 1 are the founding contributors invited to dogfood the site and shape its direction; later waves expand access as the product matures. See Getting Started for what beta access includes.
Category
A topical grouping of companies — e.g., "Demand-Side Platform," "Attribution & Analytics," "Connected TV." A company can belong to multiple categories. The full list is at /categories.
Community correction
An anonymous public submission flagging something wrong on an entity page (a company, person, event, or article). Submitted via the "Spotted an error?" link in the footer or any "Report a field" pill on a page. Each correction is reviewed by an admin before any change is applied — submissions are never auto-applied to the data.
Connection
See relationship — they refer to the same thing.
Corroborated
A verification seal state (amber). The entity has two or more distinct origins, but all of them are company directories, profiles, or first-party pages, so there is no independent reporting yet. See Verification.
Defunct
A company status. This company is no longer operating. It may have been shut down, gone out of business, or had its assets sold without a continuing brand. Examples: Quibi, Vine. See operational status.
Editor / Trust level
ATDb has tiered editing rights based on trust:
- L0 — New — just registered. Can browse, watchlist, vote on accuracy and report issues; with beta access, can also suggest edits (all reviewed).
- L1 — Contributor — same rights as L0, earned with approved edits.
- L2 — Trusted Editor — edits to non-protected fields go live without review, and can create entities directly.
- L3 — Moderator — full editing rights, plus moderation tools.
L1 and L2 are earned automatically as your edits are approved; L3 is granted by admins. See Editing & Contributing.
Entity
The general term for anything ATDb tracks: a company, a person, an event (deal, acquisition, funding round), or a news article. Each entity has its own page with details, relationships, and history.
Fact source
A structured record linking a specific fact on an entity page (e.g., "parent company = Omnicom") to the source URL that supports it (e.g., a press release, a regulator filing, a trade-press article). Fact sources power the verification seal: the more independent sources back a fact, the higher its verified confidence. See Verification.
Fuzzy match / fuzzy matching
A way of comparing two text strings that might describe the same thing despite small differences — "Snowflake" vs "Snowflake Inc." vs "snowflake.com." ATDb uses fuzzy matching internally to link companies mentioned in news articles, deduplicate entries, and match competitor lists. The matcher returns a confidence score; high-confidence matches are auto-applied, low-confidence ones get human review.
Hallucination score
A confidence score the AI applies to each new fact it proposes, measuring how well the proposed claim is supported by the source the AI cited. Catches the most common AI failure mode — confidently asserting something the source doesn't actually say. It works behind the scenes and isn't shown on pages. See Verification.
Help confirm
A link in the verification seal's panel, shown on entities that are Unverified or Corroborated. It opens the entity's /verify/[slug] page where you can suggest an edit or send a corroborating source. See Verification.
Knowledge graph / network
The interconnected web of entities and the relationships between them. Visualized at /graph. When you read "the network" or "the knowledge graph" elsewhere on ATDb, this is what's meant.
Merged
A company status. This company combined with another to form a new entity, or was consumed in a merger of equals. The original brand may or may not survive. Example: Magnite (formed by the Rubicon Project + Telaria merger). See operational status.
Origin (verification)
In the context of the verification seal, an "origin" is a distinct, independent publisher. Wire-syndicated reprints of the same press release count as one origin, not many. The "Verified · N sources" chip on an entity counts origins, not raw article URLs — so a heavily-syndicated story doesn't artificially inflate confidence.
Operational status
The current real-world state of a company. ATDb tracks five non-default statuses (a company without one of these is active — operating normally):
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Acquired | Bought by another company. |
| Merged | Combined with another into a new entity. |
| Rebranded | Changed its name. The same legal entity continues. |
| Subsidiary | Owned by a parent company; operates as its own brand. |
| Defunct | No longer operating. |
The colored badge under a company's title shows its status. Click any badge for the definition + examples.
Rebranded
A company status. The same legal entity, operating under a new name. The company didn't change owners — it just changed what it calls itself. Example: Meta (formerly Facebook, Inc.). See operational status.
Relationship
A typed, directional link between two entities — e.g., "Snowflake is a competitor of Amazon Redshift" or "Jane Doe is the CEO of Acme Corp." Relationships are how ATDb connects companies to other companies, people to companies, events to companies, etc.
Common types:
- Competes with: a two-way rivalry
- Acquired: the first company bought the second
- Subsidiary of: the first company is owned by the second
- Partner of: a two-way partnership
- Integrates with: a two-way technical integration
- Co-owned by: jointly owned by the second company
- Rebranded to: the first company was renamed to the second
- CEO of, founder of, employee of, board member of, advisor to: person-to-company roles
- Mentions, covers, involves: news and event links
You may also see a relationship called a "connection" or, in technical contexts, an "edge". Same thing.
Source class
A categorization of where a fact's evidence comes from. Different kinds of sources carry different weight in our verification scoring: regulator filings such as the SEC and FTC (highest weight), company investor-relations pages and official newsrooms, trade press (Adweek, Digiday, AdExchanger), press-release wires (PRNewswire, BusinessWire, useful for the originator but not for editorial verification), company directories, profiles and app-store listings (they corroborate that a company exists but aren't independent reporting, so they earn the amber "Corroborated" seal rather than green), and reference sites such as Wikipedia (prefer the underlying citation when present). See Verification.
Stance classifier
An automated classifier that reads each cited source and tags how it frames a fact: support (the source confirms the claim), deny (the source contradicts the claim), or rumored (the source describes the claim as exploratory / unverified / in-talks). Only sources whose stance matches the claim shown on the page count toward verification — so a "they're reportedly in talks" article doesn't trigger a "Verified · acquired" chip.
Subsidiary
A company status. Owned by a parent company. Operates as its own brand but is under parent control — financially, strategically, or both. Examples: YouTube (Google subsidiary), Instagram (Meta subsidiary). See operational status.
Tier
ATDb's S / A / B / C / D scale for company importance in AdTech. See the Tiers help page for full criteria + examples per tier. Click any tier badge on a company page for a quick definition.
Verification seal
The small chip on every company/person/event/news header that tells you how solid the underlying evidence is — "Verified · N sources", "Corroborated · N sources", or a plain source count; unsourced pages show "Unverified" or no chip. See the full explainer at Verification.
Watchlist
Companies you want to follow. ATDb sends a daily or weekly digest (or instant notifications) summarizing news, deals, and people changes for everything on your watchlist. Add or remove with the heart icon on a company, person, deal, or news page. See Watchlist.
Don't see a term you're looking for? Send us a note via the feedback link — we'll add it.