WA Today (Australia): Search engine pulls ads promoting controversial weight loss drug. “Shonky websites purporting to sell an in-demand Hollywood weight loss drug have been appearing above health warnings in Australian search engine results, as the regulator continues to crack down on the illegal sale of Ozempic.”
TechCrunch: UK closes ‘Jedi Blue’ antitrust collusion case against Google and Meta. “The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) won’t be pursuing an anticompetition collusion case against Google and Facebook’s parent Meta, following a similar decision made by its counterparts in the Europe Union. However, Google will remain under the CMA’s spotlight, with parts of the Google-Meta case now being bundled with a separate ongoing antitrust against Google.”
Notre Dame News: ‘Lyft’ vs. ‘Lift’: Consumers are less likely to support brands with unconventional spellings, study shows . “New research from the University of Notre Dame finds that in general, consumers are less likely to support uniquely spelled unfamiliar brands, compared with those that use the conventional spelling of the same word… However, the study finds there is no backfire effect when a company’s motive for selecting a uniquely spelled name is perceived as sincere.”
Reuters: Twitter’s revenue, adjusted earnings drop about 40% in December – WSJ. ” Twitter Inc reported a drop of about 40% year-over-year in both revenue and adjusted earnings for the month of December, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday citing people familiar with the matter.”
UPI: Korean department store using AI to write ads. “A growing number of businesses are taking advantage of artificial intelligence. One such company is South Korea’s Hyundai Department Store, which announced it will use AI technology to write its advertising copy starting this month.”
Marketplace: Now we’re paying for social media … but for what, exactly?. “They used to say that if you’re not paying for the product, the product is you. But if you’re now paying for social media, what exactly is the product? Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino spoke to Shirin Ghaffary, a correspondent at Vox, about the benefits and trade-offs of the blue badge. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.”
University of Winnipeg: The University of Winnipeg Archives digitize the Kern-Hill Furniture commercial collection. “After learning University Archivist Brett Lougheed had acquired a collection of television commercials produced by Kern-Hill Furniture in the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s for the UWinnipeg Archives, [Professor Andrew] Burke applied for, and received, a Discretionary Grant to digitize the collection.”
Vox: Social media used to be free. Not anymore.. “Social media companies can’t make as much money off their free users as they used to. A weaker advertising market, privacy restrictions imposed by Apple that make it harder to track users and their preferences, and the perpetual threat of regulation have made it harder for social media apps to sell ads. Which is why we’re seeing the beginnings of what might be a new era of social media: pay-to-play.”
Reuters: Google tests blocking news content for some Canadians. “Alphabet Inc’s Google is rolling out tests that block access to news content for some Canadian users, the company confirmed on Wednesday, in what it says is a test run of a potential response to the government’s online news bill.”
The Register: What Brit watchdog redacted: Google gives Apple cut of Chrome iOS search revenue. “Google has been paying Apple a portion of search revenue generated by people using Google Chrome on iOS, according to a source familiar with the matter. This is one of the aspects of the relationship between the two tech goliaths that currently concerns the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).”
Engadget: Microsoft is reportedly already planning to bring ads to Bing’s AI chatbot. Of course they are. “Microsoft is reportedly in talks with advertising agencies on how to slot ads into the juiced-up Bing, particularly when it comes to the generative AI-powered chatbot. The company is already testing ads there, according to Reuters, including by slotting in traditional search ads.”
New York Times: Why Are You Seeing So Many Bad Digital Ads Now?. “…advertising experts agree that crummy ads — some just irritating, others malicious — appear to be proliferating. They point to a variety of potential causes: internal turmoil at tech companies, weak content moderation and higher-tier advertisers exploring alternatives.”
TechCrunch: Google starts beta testing its rebrand of interest-based ad-targeting on Android. “Google has begun letting Android developers kick the tyres of its claimed reboot of ad-targeting — announcing the launch of the first Beta for its ‘Privacy Sandbox’, an adtech stack proposal which aims to iterate how ad tracking, targeting and reporting is done so it appears less creepy for individual users while maintaining an interest-based, behavioral targeting capability on web users’ eyeballs.”
MJ Biz Daily: Twitter to allow ads for cannabis, THC products in United States. “In a major policy shift, Twitter Inc. is allowing ‘approved’ and state-legal cannabis companies and other advertisers to post ads in the United States for regulated THC and CBD products, accessories and services, the social media platform has disclosed.”
Ars Technica: ~11,000 sites have been infected with malware that’s good at avoiding detection. “Nearly 11,000 websites in recent months have been infected with a backdoor that redirects visitors to sites that rack up fraudulent views of ads provided by Google Adsense, researchers said.”
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