FTC Issues New Rules for Native Advertising on the Internet (blockadblock.com) 120
popo writes: Native Advertising, or advertorial content that's camouflaged to mimic a site's original content is all the rage among web publishers these days particularly as ad-blocking takes a bigger and bigger bite out of traditional web-advertising revenues. Well the FTC reiterated its position on native ads and may have just slammed the door shut on this "alternative" form of online advertising. The verdict: If it's not clearly marked "advertising", it may be considered misleading. And by misleading, the FTC means illegal. Of course, from an adblocking perspective, once you clearly indicate something is an ad — you make it all the more easy to block. Which defeats one of the primary goals of native ads to begin with.
Re:You mean I can't pretend my content is real? (Score:4, Interesting)
I personally, consciously support advertising because I recognize the the value from both the perspective of the advertiser and the website. However I still use adblock because the way these ads work is just downright annoying, but, I leave the acceptable ads option turned on to enable the ones that aren't.
Consider the perspective of the sponsor: When you have a new product you're trying to sell, you need a way to communicate with your customer that it is in fact available for them to buy. Take something you obviously use for example: A personal computer. Now, while you yourself might be well informed about the market and build your own, the vast majority of any given business's potential customers aren't. Advertising is how you reach them.
And then of course, the perspective of the website: They pay actual people actual money to write their content. That money doesn't come in when people don't pay to view it, but it DOES have to come from somewhere. Thus, advertising works suitably.
If some websites are getting tired of adblock, then instead of using anti-adblock scripts (which people create filters to work around these all the time, see the adblock forum) they might try doing the sensible thing and stop using assfucking annoying ads. Either that or if the acceptable ads don't pay enough, then show the regular annoying ads to people who don't use adblock and show acceptable ads to adblock users. Either that or they get nothing at all from adblock users who will either simply opt for a competitor site that has similar content or just find a way to circumvent their anti-adblock script.
Even Google, who is in many respects the king of internet advertising and likely gains the most from it, is trying to get the ad industry to stop with these crap tactics.
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That is why God created search engines. If you really have something to sell, then advertising on a random site is a piss poor way to get PAYING customers. In fact, putting advertising on a site is a sure way to piss people off and in some cases make them totally against whatever you are trying to sell.
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That is why God created search engines.
Uh...You mean like the 1990's era search engines that rank results based on keywords? Who are you, Rip Van Winkle? With modern search engines you aren't likely to be found that way as they tend to rank pages based on how well people like them. If nobody hears about your product to begin with, then how are they going to like it?
Horseshit. You are totally ignoring that other metric they use to get money... Namely investors.
Are you dumb, or high? I can't tell. If none of the above, then I'm sorry, but I can't help you, nor can anybody else for that matter.
Re: You mean I can't pretend my content is real? (Score:2)
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The best advertising is positive, trustworthy reviews. Everyone knows this, the problem is that many companies are trying to polish a turd. Most irritating advertising is only necessary if your product sucks.
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Re:You mean I can't pretend my content is real? (Score:5, Insightful)
The web sites serving ads don't even know if the ads are annoying. It's all handled by a third party and he website owner fully intends to sit back passively and wait for the money to roll in. They're too busy writing their useless blog to actually pay attention. No real newspaper or television channel would ever use an advertisement that none of the staff has viewed first, yet that is the standard practice on the internet. The web site owners don't do the necessary work to decide what sorts of ads might be relevant to their viewers, they let Google figure that part out.
It's well past he absurdity stage. Youtube required me to watch part of a movie preview first before it let me see the video I wanted, even though that video was a movie preview (this actually happened). Imagine a classic rock radio station playing ads for country music because some algorithm decided that the listener appears to have an interest in music.
The whole attitude that someone "deserves" to be paid because of minimal effort spent creating the content is absurd. No one ever deserves anything, you have to work for it. If the money doesn't come in then find a new job.
Re: You mean I can't pretend my content is real? (Score:2)
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So this means they just don't care?
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Consider the perspective of the sponsor: When you have a new product you're trying to sell, you need a way to communicate with your customer that it is in fact available for them to buy. Take something you obviously use for example: A personal computer. Now, while you yourself might be well informed about the market and build your own, the vast majority of any given business's potential customers aren't. Advertising is how you reach them.
Yes, even though advertising is intrinsically bad because it spins, we're a long way from a nirvana where independent editorial is that's perfectly informed about both the market and each person's needs is always affordably available, and where no vendor tries to get an artificial leg-up by advertising anyway. But if we're going to have advertising, there's plenty of better forms of it than paid placements in and around other media. Company websites and point-of-sale for example.
To cover the situation wh
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If some websites are getting tired of adblock, then instead of using anti-adblock scripts (which people create filters to work around these all the time, see the adblock forum) they might try doing the sensible thing and stop using assfucking annoying ads. Either that or if the acceptable ads don't pay enough, then show the regular annoying ads to people who don't use adblock and show acceptable ads to adblock users. Either that or they get nothing at all from adblock users who will either simply opt for a competitor site that has similar content or just find a way to circumvent their anti-adblock script.
My favorite sites do just that. Their ads are unobtrusive and I don't block them because I value their content. They also sell their own branded items as well as offer a voluntary donation program to help keep the site free. As a result, I get to enjoy great content for free; although I do make donations as well.
I understand and agree with the argument that I should decide what gets displayed on my computer; however that also applies to the website owner who gets to decide under what terms the site's mater
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Um, if they could detect people who used adblock and customise content for them, many sites would just block those users outright rather than put up with the complexity of two ways to manage ads. And then the adblock guys would see that as an "attack" and fix it.
Advertising seems to currently heading down through a death cycle just like it was at t
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Consider the perspective of the sponsor:... And then of course, the perspective of the website:...
Hell, consider the perspective of the reasonable user. I don't mind at all non-obtrusive ads that don't screw up my browsing with too much data down, or burning CPU cycles with JavaScript, or blocking the main content. I find that a very few sites I visit actually have ads like that, which sometimes are for something I want to check out, and actually get clicked. But intrusive ads, not only do I not click them, I quit going to the site entirely--I have *never* found a site that I needed badly enough to put
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well this is actually something that's pretty common around the world already...
like, it has to be obvious to the reader in print media if it is a total advertisement or not...
of course plenty of (hobby, special) magazines especially tend to be pretty sketchy about this.
same goes for games media, car media etc portions that depend on publishers/manufacturers giving them free access to products in exchange of positive review pumping.
I guess this doesn't bar product placement though (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess this won't bar product placement though. What distinguishes between "placement" and "native ads" anyway? Placement has gotten pretty ridiculous in some media. You know, I used to enjoy the Tonight Show monologue, right up through Leno. Come to think of it, even Leno did placements with his "products that shouldn't merge" routine; but at least it was funny. Sort of. Now I play a game with the Tonight Show and some of the other late night shows. When the first product placement appears, I turn the TV off and go to bed. Very often I fail to make it through the entire monologue.
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Of course it won't, nor should it. There are two major kinds of placement (to me). There is version were the product is just being used in the course of the show. Character has to have a vehicle, phone, computer, etc. This is no problem. Then there is the kind where scenes are written just for the product. The (unnecessary) car chase that ends with a zoom on the logo, the beer bottle set down right in front of the camera. That kind will make me find another show.
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Fox News doesn't necessarily do what is best for Republicans. It appeals to Republicans, but only their instincts that lead those viewers to consume more Fox News.
Basically Fox News capitalizes on Republican outrage, but doesn't necessarily serve Republican interests.
I still think that the best thing that could happen to Fox News was a 2nd term for Obama. It definitely helps their viewership.
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It's everywhere. Morning TV shows are nothing but ads with actual 'news' tickered at the bottom. Ellen used to be an entertaining talk show. Now it's a 60 minute ad for her sponsors.
Hell Jurassic World was a 90 minute commercial for Beats, Samsung and Mercedes.
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I had no idea TV was like this. I haven't really watched any prime-time television in years now. Didn't know I was missing so much! Are the popular sitcoms and dramas like this also?
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Between the 10 minutes of commercials in a 30 minute time slot (including running closing and/or opening credits in a small window while a commercial for some other show is playing, sorta like picture-in-a-picture), the corner bugs, the bottom bars that over lap the corner bugs, the other corner bugs, etc. you don't even need a show to show it is about advertising.
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Every show or movie I've seen in the past many years has such a list at the end The law probably already exists. Almost always the last item in the credits (shocker). And listed as "promotional consideration"
Keep in mind, the FTC isn't saying "you cannot." It's saying "you cannot do it and not tell people"
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When my wife is also watching, I don't play my favorite TBBT (virtual) drinking game.
Whenever a character makes a reference to a product or franchise, I say "Drink". Two in a row for the same product/franchise, I say "Chug".
Virtual, because I generally don't drink much, and never drink _that_ much.
Good - but it was going to happen anyway (Score:5, Interesting)
I work in the advertising industry. Despite all the buzz around them and the dumb marketing nonsense, "native" ads had abysmal click-through rate, engagement, and literally negative brand metric. Turns out, users really really dislike being tricked into thinking an ad is actual page content, and brands are starting to get results back that show this. High end clients have specifically eliminated native advertisement from their purchased inventory.
The rules still need to be in place for the crap-tier networks, but chances are those are going to be based in eastern europe anyway and thus not subject to FTC rules at all.
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The only reason why this has been happening in the first place is because Gamergate started a campaign against undisclosed native advertising last year. [reddit.com] The whole idea was going after clickbait sites by hurting their bottom line, and it seems to be working very well.
Re:Good - but it was going to happen anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
Way go over sell the importance of gamer gate. Undisclosed advertising has been a problem and has attracted regulations for decades. This is just one more in a 60 year old battle between advertisers wanting to trick viewers and the government trying to keep them honest to promote fair trade.
This would have happened with or without gamer gate, and I don't gamer gate had any notable effect.
Well let's see, you've provided a link. I'm sure that you're being ethical and providing a link to a nice, unbiased source, rather than something written by gaters themselves. The latter would be deeply unethical and therefore against everything gaters have ever done (excluding all the stuff they made up and the rape and death threats that is).
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Way go over sell the importance of gamer gate. Undisclosed advertising has been a problem and has attracted regulations for decades.
I'm sure that's why it's suddenly all happened at once and the FTC has come out in force against it right? If it would have happened without gamergate, then I'm sure you can prove that they if they hadn't engaged in said campaign then it would have happened eventually as well.
Well let's see, you've provided a link. I'm sure that you're being ethical and providing a link to a nice, unbiased source, rather than something written by gaters themselves. The latter would be deeply unethical and therefore against everything gaters have ever done (excluding all the stuff they made up and the rape and death threats that is).
So like many people, you make the usual "rape/death threats/bs" I'm sure you've actually got proof of that, you know unlike the mass number of pedophiles in anti-GG or the ones that are actively doxing people, trying to get individua
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I'm sure that's why it's suddenly all happened at once and the FTC has come out in force against it right? If it would have happened without gamergate, then I'm sure you can prove that they if they hadn't engaged in said campaign then it would have happened eventually as well.
Correlation is not causation. The onus is on you to prove that the gaters had any effect on the FTC. The underlying cause (the rise of so-called native ads on the internet) is clearly the cause for both of these things. What is not cle
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Correlation is not causation. The onus is on you to prove that the gaters had any effect on the FTC. The underlying cause (the rise of so-called native ads on the internet) is clearly the cause for both of these things. What is not clear is that the gaters had any effect on the FTC.
I did, you said it doesn't count. The documentation stating that it was the op in question was the main reason that the FTC turned around and updated the rules doesn't seem to count for you.
Of course one must remember that the media has had it out for GG since day one, unlike say...BLM. After all, a corrupt media that lives on clickbait has has an enemy in GG, especially an enemy that exposes their clickbait and unethical practices. Ever wonder why so many sites that survive on clickbait banned all discu
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I did, you said it doesn't count. The documentation stating that it was the op in question was the main reason that the FTC turned around and updated the rules doesn't seem to count for you.
A bunch of people identifying with a cause founded on a lie telling me they've done something good is not evidence unless you've drowned in their KoolAid already.
Why on earth should I believe them?
Of course one must remember that the media has had it out for GG since day one,
Day one of gg was ethically spreading lies abo
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A bunch of people identifying with a cause founded on a lie telling me they've done something good is not evidence unless you've drowned in their KoolAid already.
Why on earth should I believe them?
What lie would that be? And it's not them telling you that, it would be the information that was conveyed by the FTC telling you that. Unless of course you couldn't be bothered to read it.
Day one of gg was ethically spreading lies about Quinn because if ethics apparently. Those alleged reviews never existed.
Given the first event was doxxing, rape and death threats over someone who didn't do anything and the "movement" snow balled from there, why should the media take them seriously. Also rape, death threats aren't ethical, and so some group trying to take the moral high ground while making them is mental, no matter what they perceive the other "side" to be doing.
Since GG never said that there were reviews, rather she got preferential treatment which is true. Remember, if you're banging a journalist and they suddenly write something about what you're making that *is* unethical. If that same journalist is reviewing/writing/offering content for your game, that's also unethical.
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Since GG never said that there were reviews,
Tell me, my man, if GG never called it reviews, then why did you, yourself refer it to as a review right here, in your very own words?
http://developers.slashdot.org... [slashdot.org]
Now I appear to have caught you either in a lie or an impressive case of self delusion.
Your post reminded me of this:
http://d1o2xrel38nv1n.cloudfro... [cloudfront.net]
Oh yes I'm sure she doxxed herself. I searched for "dox" in the wall of text you linked to. Not present.
I like how you're bringing alleged events that
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>High end clients have specifically eliminated native advertisement from their purchased inventory.
Motley Fool investor advertorials are especially egregious. The ones pushed on facebook are offensive beyond words. I've blackholed MF itself. Forever.
--
BMO
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Every site should be payable (Score:3)
I know how it should be: regulator should force every commercial media/service website to offer you a paid adless trackless version. For example, I should be able to choose between paying $10 a month and getting no ads and no tracking from google or pay 0 and get both. If I think that is not worth $10, they can bombast me any way they want with ads and play the arms race no matter how nasty they want. I think it is fair and it would show the clear value of targetted ads.
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"That's a nice data cap you've got there, it would be a real shame if anything happened to it."
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Check out our service Webpass.io [webpass.io], which is a step towards what you're asking for, and have a look at our privacy policy if you please. Tracking is one of my greatest concerns with advertising.
The FTC banned native advertising and... (Score:3, Funny)
You won't believe what they did next!
Some Outlets Only Learn the Hard Way (Score:1)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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I use it because I want to get the bandwidth that I'm paying for instead of having a lot of freeloaders piggy back on it. A 100 word article should not take several seconds to load, and if someone is on dialup it shouldn't take 5 minutes just to read the first line. Maybe if the advertisers starting paying their fair share here it wouldn't be so bad - after all, the junk mail that shows up from the postal service is not free, the advertisers had to pay bulk rates to get it to me (which I immediately throw
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I take issue with ads regardless because I have literally zero interest in them, having never clicked one intentionally (sometimes they've used exploits to force me to click them when I click elsewhere on the page, but that's frankly a form of hacking and should be illegal if it's not). They're just a waste of time and bandwidth to me, therefore nowadays I block every type of ad I can.
The real problem is that you don't know if a page is ad sponsored until you visit it. Sites should have to disclose they're
Anti-adblock site (Score:3, Informative)
Rest assured (Score:3)
Rest assured it won't happen here.
If MojoKid, StartsWithABang, StewPid and Nerval's Lobster all fall under a bus.
It's not about adblockers... (Score:5, Interesting)
The site I work on uses native advertising (as well as more conventional ads). We prefer the native ads not because we're trying to fool blockers (or indeed users) - the ads are still clearly labelled as such. The reason we prefer them is they perform hugely better. When the ad content fits with the overall content of the site and is actually tailored to the audience it turns out people engage with it - and that makes the advertisers happy and makes us more money.
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Based on this preliminary stuff, ads labeled as ads would not be affected. Who knows if this will go anywhere or not though.
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I think it's probably a bit of both. In our case, we're absolutely not trying to make the ads look like editorial content (we don't have any) - they "look like" user posts, they're just obviously branded as being paid. The real trick (I think) is that before we take any of these ads on we work with the brands in question to get them to understand our audience and what appeals to them, and can even provide them with creative services to help make stuff which resonates. When we get really good paid content, u
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Thanks for the explanation.
Content ads will naturally be more relevant on niche-topic forums than on general forums or news sites.
Are they pay-per-post-view, pay-per-title-view, pay-per-period, pay-per-click-in-post, or pay-per-action? And are there strict rules against commercial posts outside this system?
I wonder how this will affect my site: (Score:2)
kr5ddit.com [kr5ddit.com] (still under development), where advertisers can buy moderation power directly from users so they can promote their stories to the top of the front page.
What problem are the FTC trying to fix here? Nobody is forced to read articles or visit any website... If user's don't find native adverts interesting, they will shy away from the websites that do that. Why do we need regulation here when the free market can sort this problem out? Making false claims about your product is already illegal, no?
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Yeah... but (according to TFA) this affects much more than just download buttons that aren't.
This would basically make it illegal for advertisers to use kr5ddit to promote their product in the way that kr5ddit was designed to be used.
It seems to me that it would also make these comments themselves illegal too, in as much as they can be seen as advertising for kr5ddit [kr5ddit.com].
Seems to go against free speech rights.
native advertising (Score:3)
What tribes are involved?
Flash banner ads killed it for me long ago (Score:1)
Advertisers can kiss my ass, due to the bullshit a few allowed in, I've been blocking ever since.
NO ad should use any form of: Java, flash, or animated GIFs. Until they all follow that rule, my blocker, in the form of DNS Redirect, stays up.
What? Not all of them will follow. Guess I won't be seeing many ads then.
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The whole reason that adblock even works is because the majority of web sites don't serve up the ads themselves, they go through a relatively small set of third party sites that do all the distasteful stuff themselves. So if you visit welovecats.org you don't have to have a block rule for that site or algorithms to figure out if an image coming from that site is an ad or not, instead you've got block rule for googleadservices.com or something like that.
And it works because adblock users are relatively few
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Naw, that can be worked around.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T (Score:1)
Our FTC is a Failure (Score:2)
I cannot see how the Federal Trade Commission can in good conscience accept money from the American people. They don't protect a level commerce field. They don't do anything to stop anti-competitive legislation. They don't do anything about monopolies. The don't certainly don't protect consumers.
Why should the good tax payers pay them?
Well now... (Score:1)
... there goes about 45% of "content" on Slashdot.
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I'm practicing my Trump salute. All hail our new furor.
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Of course he is. He doesn't evey try to hide it. He denies it but in the same way he denies everything, rolling his eyes just right to tell his supporters "I'm just saying this to appease the media but you all know what I really think, wink wink, nudge nudge".
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You got modded down (obviously), but it's worth pointing out that if native advertising is banned or limited by the FCC, hosts blocking will retain its power indefinitely. The push towards mixing content with manipulative bullshit has always been the weak point of hosts blocking, and probably the biggest reason to not accept hosts based solutions in general.