advertising - CybAI news

15 Jan

That Sports News Story You Clicked on Could Be AI Slop

stp2y0 CommentsGenAIadvertising, artificial intelligence, digital content, news

NBC Sportz did not respond to requests for comment. Neither NBCSport.co.uk nor BBCSportss.co.uk has an email address or other contact information publicly associated with it, so WIRED had no way of making contact. (All three websites were registered by the domain management company Namecheap, as was a site imitating CBS News that DoubleVerify suspects of being within the Synthetic Echo network.)Bad actors have attempted to piggyback off successful media outlets by republishing their work without permission for many years. Now, though, AI tools allow for variations on this scheme to proliferate at a newly accelerated pace. “This kind of low-quality…

03 Jan

Facebook and Instagram Ads Push Gun Silencers Disguised as Car Parts

stp2y0 CommentsRAG modelsadvertising, facebook, guns, instagram, social media

Experts believe the operation is based in China and relies on a drop-shipping scheme. “It’s likely just a reshipper selling controversial or illegal products,” says Zach Edwards, a senior threat researcher at cybersecurity firm Silent Push who specializes in online data ecosystems.Typically, Edwards explains, drop-shippers wait for a customer to place an order, then purchase the item from inexpensive online retailers, repackage it, and ship it to the customers. Edwards says that the operator behind the network is likely creating hundreds of websites, applying a moderate markup to the products, and spinning up Facebook pages to promote their items. “Even…

03 Dec

Walmart completes its $2.3 billion purchase of Vizio

stp2y0 CommentsNewsacquisition, advertising, business, corporate erin, gear, industry, news, smart tv, television, tv, vizio, walmart

Vizio is now a member of the Walmart corporate empire. The retail company announced the completion of its $2.3 billion acquisition of the TV manufacturer on Tuesday.Walmart didn’t just buy a TV brand. It now owns a new advertising platform. Vizio’s SmartCast OS collects huge amounts of data from its 19 million active accounts, and the company makes the majority of its money from the platform. Walmart’s new partnership with Vizio and its other smart TV brand Onn is sure to stir up the lucrative competition for advertising revenue, according to the Wall Street Journal.Walmart officially announced its plans to…

19 Nov

X adds Twitch to its advertising boycott lawsuit

stp2y0 CommentsNewsadvertising, boycott, cvs, lawsuit, Legal, Mars, news, social media, tomorrow, twitch, X

Twitch is now on the docket for X’s lawsuit against companies that stopped advertising on the social media site. X amended its lawsuit on Monday to include Twitch as a defendant in its lawsuit in a federal court in Wichita Falls, Texas, according to Reuters.The new complaint claims that the gaming stream site owned by Amazon stopped purchasing ads on X at the end of 2022. X alleges that Twitch and other companies conspired with the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) network’s Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) initiative to withhold “billions of dollars in advertising revenue” from Elon Musk’s…

14 Nov

The new Xbox ad campaign is confused about what an Xbox is

stp2y0 CommentsNewsad, advertising, comedy, commercial, funny, gaming, marketing, news, weird, xbox, xbox cloud, Xbox Series X

These times are very trying and it’s understandable if someone goes a little off the deep end once in a while. Just like Norman Bates said in Psycho, “We all go a little mad sometimes.” However, a new Xbox ad campaign has us a little concerned.Microsoft launched a new marketing campaign for its Xbox consoles and cloud gaming service called “This is an Xbox.” It features posters and commercials with a bunch of different objects like a laptop, a smartphone and a Meta Quest 3 that are all “an Xbox.”We confirmed with a thorough fact check that all of those…

14 Nov

Google will stop serving political ads in the EU, including on YouTube

stp2y0 CommentsNewsadvertising, big tech, eu, gear, google, news

Google will stop serving political advertisements in the European Union. The decision, in The Keyword blog, is in response to an upcoming new rule for the bloc that "introduces significant new operational challenges and legal uncertainties for political advertisers and platforms." The company says the Regulation on Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising has an overly broad definition for political advertising and raised concerns that technical guidance around the policy may not be given until close to October 2025, when the rules will take effect.In addition to no longer serving that ad content ahead of next October, Google said that…

06 Oct

EU court rules social networks can’t use personal data forever

stp2y0 CommentsNewsadvertising, data, european union, facebook, fines, law, Legal, meta, news, personal, ruling, tomorrow

Once again, the European Union has issued a ruling preventing Meta from going too crazy with user information. The top court in the EU ruled that limits must be put in place for how long Meta and other social media networks can use people’s information for ad targeting strategies. reported that the EU’s highest court sided with an earlier opinion published in April by a court adviser. The previous ruling also urged for limits on the amount of time companies could retain customers’ personal data for the purpose of targeting advertising.The rulings referred its retention guidelines to the bloc’s established…

04 Oct

Meta Can’t Use Sexual Orientation to Target Ads in the EU, Court Rules

stp2y0 CommentsRAG modelsadvertising, europe, facebook, meta, privacy, social media

Europe’s most famous privacy activist, Max Schrems, landed another blow against Meta today after the EU’s top court ruled the tech giant cannot exploit users’ public statements about their sexual orientation for online advertising.Since 2014, Schrems has complained of seeing advertising on Meta platforms targeting his sexual orientation. Schrems claims, based on data he obtained from the company, that advertisers using Meta can deduce his sexuality from proxies, such as his app logins or website visits. Meta denies it showed Schrems personalized ads based on his off-Facebook data, and the company has long said it excludes any sensitive data it…

19 Sep

YouTube is now showing ads when you pause videos

stp2y0 CommentsNewsads, advertising, entertainment, internet, news, Videos, youtube

Google has found another way to turn your eyeballs into money: by turning paused YouTube videos into a new real estate for ads. A YouTube communications manager told they’ve seen “strong advertiser and strong reviewer responses” since they “rolled out Pause ads to all advertisers.”YouTube first started looking at using ads on pause screens in 2023 with select advertisers. Google’s chief business officer announced last April that advertisers loved the new ad concept. YouTube’s viewers aren’t as enthusiastic about the idea.Reddit users posted of the new pause screen ads and to say they with the ads is the understatement of…

18 Sep

Report: Google offered to sell AdX to end EU antitrust suit

stp2y0 CommentsNewsadvertising, antitrust, big tech, gear, google, lawsuit, news

In an effort to quell monopoly concerns in the EU, Google reportedly offered to sell its AdX advertising marketplace. Sources told that European publishers rejected Google's offer, arguing that the company would have to divest more in order to dismantle the conflicts of interest in its online advertising operations. Lawyers familiar with the antitrust cases said this was the first time Google had offered to sell off an asset in response to this type of lawsuit.Despite this alleged sale offer, Google is publicly standing firm about its adtech business. "As we have said before, the European Commission's case about our…