Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
A study from Adalytics Research explores the intricacies of Google’s Search Partner (GSP) network and asks marketers, “Does a lack of transparency create brand safety concerns for search advertisers?” The report suggests marketers booking ads via GSP — a network of thousands of sites that use its content-discovery and monetization tools — run the risk of their…
Update (11/16/23): IBM released a statement to the Financial Times saying that it has “suspended all advertising on X while we investigate this entirely unacceptable situation.” Media Matters will update if the other major companies in this report take any similar actions. Update (11/17/23): Axios reported that “Apple is pausing all advertising on X, the Elon Musk-owned…
Last week, Walmart made headlines with a claim that new weight loss drugs might be making people buy less food. Walmart US CEO John Furner told Bloomberg that people taking Wegovy, Ozempic, and similar drugs showed a “slight change” in their purchasing habits: “just less units, slightly less calories.” How does Walmart know this? Because,…
Credit…Illustration by Derek Brahney May 9, 2017 Recently I handed over the keys to my email account to a service that promised to turn my spam-bloated inbox into a sparkling model of efficiency in just a few clicks. Unroll.me’s method of instant unsubscribing from newsletters and junk mail was “trusted by millions of happy users,”…
Americans at the lower end of the economic ladder suffer from an ever-growing privacy divide, impacting more than just their personal dignity and autonomy. In 1969, a woman named Barbara James walked into a neighborhood legal services office in New York City in search of help to fight the city’s home visit policy. Her case…
A test by Walgreens of technology that replaced some cooler doors with digital screens that play ads has ended in acrimony. The digital screens’ vendor, Cooler Screens, is suing the pharmacy chain, saying that Walgreens obstructed an agreed-upon nationwide rollout of the internet-connected doors and demanded their removal from stores, according to court documents….
One of the top takeaways from this year’s Digiday Publishing Summit in Key Biscayne, Fla. was that while ad revenue is starting to flow back into the market, advertisers are asking for more proof that they’re going to get a return on their investment from their publisher partners. Between the on stage sessions and the…
Ad fraud will cost marketers $84 billion this year – 22% of all online ad spend. This figure is expected to soar to $170 billion in five years’ time in 2028, according to a new in-depth study from Juniper Research. Why we care. Ad fraud could be costing your brand money, hurting campaign results, leaving…
Pluralistic: The surveillance advertising to financial fraud pipeline (29 Sept 2023) Today’s links The surveillance advertising to financial fraud pipeline: Finding suckers is the one thing ad-targeting is good at. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2003, 2008, 2013, 2018, 2022 Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current writing projects, current…
The Federal Trade Commission and 17 state attorneys general today sued Amazon.com, Inc. alleging that the online retail and technology company is a monopolist that uses a set of interlocking anticompetitive and unfair strategies to illegally maintain its monopoly power. The FTC and its state partners say Amazon’s actions allow it to stop rivals and…