Articles about Advertising

Facebook's plans to show adverts to everyone regardless of whether they are using an ad blocker was always going to prove controversial. The decision to bypass the privacy and security tools that many people have put in place has riled one company in particular -- Adblock Plus.

Describing the social network's latest move as being 'all anti-user', Adblock Plus's Ben Williams says that it is an 'unfortunate move' that 'takes a dark path against user choice'. He goes on to pooh-pooh the idea that Facebook made the decision based on what users want.

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Advertising on Facebook has undergone many changes over the years, but the latest tweak is likely to prove particularly controversial. As well as announcing the rollout of new controls for users to set ad preferences, the social network today says that its ads will circumvent ad blocking software.

The idea of bypassing the likes of Adblock Plus will almost certainly rub many Facebook users the wrong way. In an attempt to sweeten the pill a little, the company says its new ad preferences controls will enable you to filter out irrelevant ads so you only see ads that might be of interest.

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There's a famous quote from 19th century British soap magnate Lord Leverhulme which goes, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, and the problem is I don't know which half".

Despite the array of technology and analytics tools available today, it’s still true that a good deal of advertising spend is simply thrown into the dark. Real-time mobile advertising platform Smaato is aiming to cut waste with the launch of its Smaato Demand Platform (SDX) that allows more accurate targeting of ads.

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Much like Google, streaming music service Spotify is increasingly turning its attention to advertising. Announcing what it refers to as "programmatic buying", the company reveals that it is launching a targeted advertising program.

Advertisers -- or "buyers" in Spotify's nomenclature -- will be granted access to not only demographic data about users, but also access to information about playlists.

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These days, the web is all about advertising. Whatever type of site you visit -- news, entertainment, music, or whatever -- you are almost certain to encounter ads. Many people turn to ad blockers not just because ads can be irritating (and something of a privacy concern), but also because they can dramatically slow down browsing.

We've already heard about Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages project which looks to speed up the web for mobile users. But AMP is about more than just pushing page content to handsets quicker. Google has also developed a way to dramatically speed up the appearance of ads: AMP for ads, or A4A.

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Alphabet Admirals Sergey Brin and Larry Page had better tell Captain Sundar Pichai to close the watertight doors—lest the search and advertising ship sink in the North Sea, where depths reach 700 meters (2,300). Brrrr. Are the lawyers handing out life preservers? Will paralegals man the water pumps?

Today's expansion of the European Union Competition Commission's investigation into Google business practices makes a really bad situation much, much, much worse. Problems are these: Adding advertising to anticompetitive charges; expanding investigation to four monopolies (AdSense, Android, search, shopping services); citing exclusive contracts as violation of the law; and narrowing the applicable market for search shopping competition, thus blowing apart one of Google's major counter legal arguments. Kaboom!

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Beacon advertising is becoming increasingly popular as a means of targeting consumers in specific locations with relevant messages.

It's now set to spread further as Freckle, the world's largest beacon technology company, announces a partnership with one of North America's largest mobile platform companies for publishers and media companies AirKast.

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Blocking online adverts is a controversial subject -- yes, adverts can be annoying but they also represent the only revenue stream for many sites.

A new survey from Adblock Plus in conjunction with HubSpot Research reveals that 83 percent of users just want to block the most intrusive ads and 77 percent would rather filter ads than block them completely.

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Online ads aren’t going away anytime soon, and that'll keep the likes of Adblock Plus in business for the foreseeable future. But if you choose not to use an ad blocker and are therefore going to be bombarded with ads, they might as well be ads that are relevant to you, right?

Google is rolling out a new feature that enables users to choose the topics they are interested in so the ads they see will be more appropriate to them. But as well as improving the ad experience for users, the new scheme means that advertisers are handed even more information about people that can be exploited for financial gain. It also enables Google to use information it gathers about users to tailor ads.

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Countless numbers of web users are completely in love with adblocking, but there are those who have tried to have it deemed illegal. Adblock Plus has been in court over this before, and today a German court has ruled, once again, that its operations are entirely legal.

Publishing house Axel Springer sued Adblock Plus, saying that no company should be able to interfere with the display of ads. Axel Springer lost its case last year, but decided to appeal. Using a recent law to attack Adblock Plus' Acceptable Ads program, Axel Springer tried to get the adblocker banned. This failed, but Adblock Plus has been forced to offer free whitelisting to the publisher.

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I don't consider myself a millennial, but according to some sources, my year of birth makes me one. Other sources list me as a "Gen Xer". No matter the box in which you put me, I love emojis -- something often associated with millennials. Why do I love them? As someone who recognizes the value of body language in communication, the written word can often lack sentiment, leading to misunderstandings. Emojis can enhance your emails, texts, and tweets, helping the reader to better understand your intention. In other words, they aren't inconsequential.

As emojis become more popular, companies will undoubtedly try to somehow monetize their use. Today, Twitter announces just that. The social network will offer targeted advertising based on a user's emoji use. This is significant, as according to Twitter, more than 110 million emojis have been used in tweets in the last couple years. Whoa.

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Opera Software made a bold move earlier this year when it introduced a native ad-blocker in its desktop Opera browser. While controversial, this feature is not enabled by default though promises to offer some major benefits, like a 40 percent boost in performance compared to an extension like AdBlock Plus.

However, folks are not only saying "No" to advertisements on their PCs but also on their smartphones and tablets. In fact, mobile ad-blocking usage has seen a 90 percent rise year-over-year, with more than 400 million devices said to run an ad-blocker. The latest versions of Opera Mini for iOS and Windows 10 Mobile and Opera for Android now cater to that growing audience too, as they too feature a built-in ad-blocker.

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Facebook has issued a statement denying mounting rumors that the company uses smartphone microphones to listen in on private conversations. The allegations have circled for some time, but have most recently been voiced by Kelli Burns, a mass communication professor at the University of South Florida.

In her own testing, Professor Burns said that after discussing certain topics within earshot of her phone, she would then see ads relating to those topics on Facebook. Just like the OK, Google feature of Android, the Facebook app does have a feature that listens out for user input, but the company says this data is not stored and certainly not used for ads.

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Businesses whose revenue come from mobile ads will seriously have to consider an alternative, because news just came in about a significant rise in mobile ad blocking usage.

According to a new report by PageFair, a start-up helping publishers get around ad blockers, and mobile app tracking company Priori Data, there has been a 90 percent rise in mobile ad blocking usage, compared to the same period last year.

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With online ad blocking becoming ever more popular, companies have to find new ways to push their products at people. With Windows 10 -- which is being aggressively pushed onto people -- Microsoft has found the perfect vehicle.

We've already seen ads in the Start menu and ads on the Lock Screen, but it doesn't end there. Windows Insiders are also treated to ads in one of the new features available in the preview builds -- the Windows Ink Workspace.

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