The mechanism at issue is ad bidding. Both TrendAI and Citizen Lab-linked researchers allege that the company abused the bidding process, which can leak data about internet users back to bidders. A bidder that collects that data over time can combine it with other information to identify individuals, follow them online and, in some cases, promote surveillance software. The report also flagged an unusual geographic pattern: the firm was the top ad buyer in Syria, Libya, Yemen and South Sudan, and held an "implausibly dominant share" of bids in Hungary, Israel, Egypt, Azerbaijan and Venezuela.
Discover-Tech was already under scrutiny. On the same day TrendAI published its report, Canadian watchdog Citizen Lab and New York ad-tech firm Confiant publicly named the company, reportedly finding its ads had appeared inside dozens of sensitive networks belonging to media organizations, governments and tech firms. Reuters also reported that TrendAI executives raised legal concerns and dropped plans to publicly attribute the activity to a named company. In May, Haaretz and Intelligence Online separately reported that Israeli-owned businesses were pitching clients on ways to identify and track Starlink users.
The stakes are high because Starlink is central to conflicts and restricted markets. Its terminals route data through SpaceX satellites rather than nationally regulated telecoms, letting users sidestep local internet restrictions, communicate in hostile areas and coordinate across battlefields. Ukraine's military relies on the service for frontline communications and directing drone strikes. The surveillance allegations rest on anonymous sources and unnamed-company analysis, and neither company has confirmed them. Attorneys advising clients on ad-tech exposure, sanctions compliance or Starlink deployments should track whether SpaceX, Discover-Tech or regulators respond, and whether the named-company attribution holds up.