Articles about Advertising

As one of the major players in online advertising it might seem surprising that Google is introducing its own ad filtering feature to Chrome.

Partly though this is a fight back against the increasing use of ad blockers that block Google’s own ads and is aimed at the most annoying ad types like pop ups and autoplay videos. Internet marketing company TechWyse has put together an infographic explaining the thinking behind Google’s decision.

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Despite the fact that Google has a vested interest in online advertising, the company is about to enable its own built-in ad blocker (of sorts) in Chrome. Starting tomorrow, 15 February, the Chrome browser across all platforms will feature ad filtering to cut out those advertisements that fail to comply with the Better Ads Standards.

This is something that Google has talked about before, but ahead of the ribbon-cutting, the company has revealed how the feature works and what it means for Chrome users. The first thing to note is that it does not mean you should ditch your current ad blocker.

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For anyone looking to bag a bargain-priced handset, Amazon Prime Exclusive Phones were a great idea. There was just one drawback: lockscreen ads. Of course, there was the option to pay to hide the advertising, but that sort of negated the benefit of the initial low price.

Last week, Amazon announced it was going to get rid of these ads. This is great news for owners of Prime Exclusive Phones, but it irked people who had paid for ad removal. Now Amazon has announced that it will be offering refunds to anyone who parted with money to hide ads.

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The election authority in Seattle says that Facebook has violated city finance laws. Regulations are in place that require the company to reveal who paid for campaign ads on the social network.

The Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission is seeking information about advertising spending for city elections that took place last year. Facebook risks a fine of up to $5,000 per ad if this information is not provided.

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Facebook has announced a new advertising policy which ban ads for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. The ban also applies to ICOs because they are "frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices."

The social network says that the new policy is a part of a drive to improve the "integrity and security of financial product and services ads," but it explains that it is keeping its guidelines "intentionally broad" to start with.

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Google is a company that's synonymous with advertisements. It makes huge amounts of money from delivering carefully targeted ads, much to the chagrin of those on the receiving end. To make life a little more bearable -- although not ad-free -- the company is making changes to Ads Settings and the Mute This Ad feature.

The changes affect not only the millions of websites that are filled with ads delivered through Google, but also the myriad of apps that are ad-supported. The latest changes make it possible to mute ad reminders, and also increases the level of control users have over ad muting.

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With consumers spending more of their smartphone time in apps worldwide, in-app advertising continued to be the main growth area in worldwide mobile ad spending and video ads are increasingly dominant.

Data from real-time advertising platform Smaato reveals in-app ad spend taking at least 85 percent of mobile ad spending in each of the top 20 mobile advertising markets worldwide.

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Kodi has been the subject of controversy for some time, and addon repository TVAddons has, in particular, been criticized from many quarters. Having recently announced that it will no longer proactively check for pirated content, TVAddons is suggesting that there's a very good reason to use Kodi addons to stream online content -- security.

The site says that one of the reasons Kodi is so hated by the industry is that addons give users the chance to avoid advertisements and "all forms of monetization." TVAddons says that Kodi addons not only enable people to avoid ads, but also potentially dangerous malware and secretive cryptocurrency miners.

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Interacting with BetaNews -- and countless other websites -- means making use of the Disqus commenting system. Today the firm has been acquired by "marketing technology company" Zeta Global.

Disqus says that "we still are and will remain the same Disqus that you know and use," but there will be concerns from users that the company is being taken over by one with a vested interested in marketing and, therefore, user data.

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It is near impossible to avoid ads these days, but Google has just introduced a new policy that makes at least one area of your smartphone a safe haven.

The new policy means that most apps will no longer be permitted to display ads on the lockscreen. But while this is something that will please Android users, it's not something that the company has really trumpeted.

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Facebook is accustomed to criticism, and it's no different when it comes to advertising. There's been a lot of talk about advertising on the social network recently, not least because of concerns about Russian ads being used to influence the outcome of the US election.

In its latest attempt to calm fears that may have built up around its advertising platform, Facebook has today set out its advertising principles. This sees the company explaining the ethics behind ads, as well as seeking to reassure users that their privacy is protected and respected at all times.

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The advertising of broadband services has long been fraught with complaints and controversy, but a new rule change should help to bring this to an end.

Following an investigation by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), ISPs will no longer be able to advertise high "up to" speeds. Instead they will have to advertise the average speed achieved by at least 50 percent of customers at peak times. Previously, the rules permitted the advertising of headline speeds enjoyed by just 10 percent of people, and the ASA found that many broadband customers were disappointed with their connection speed.

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Advertising via platforms like Google and Facebook is popular, but any insights gained from using these services are difficult to apply elsewhere.

Identity management company Drawbridge is launching a new Self Service Graph dashboard that gives marketers transparency into their cross-device data by letting them tap into the service, without requiring any engineering on the client side.

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Ads on Facebook have been something of a controversial subject for some time now -- particularly with suggestions of Russian attempts to influence the outcome of the US presidential election. In its latest attempt to have a more transparent ad platform, the social network has announced a series of measures that will help people understand more about advertising.

All ads -- not just political ones -- are to be subject to extra transparency, with a new View Ads link making it possible to view all the ads a particular advertiser has placed. Political advertiser will face more stringent requirement. They must not only verify their identity, but also publicly disclose the source of funding for their ads.

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Looking for new ways to make money out of its professional social network LinkedIn, Microsoft is testing video advertisements. Currently in closed beta testing, video advertising is available to "a limited number of advertisers" and it may well prove unpopular with LinkedIn users.

Following a well-worn path set out by the likes of Google, Facebook and others, the video ads will autoplay. The one saving grace is that videos will play without sound, but this is unlikely to be enough to prevent them from quickly becoming an irritant.

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