Colorado Catholic group bought app data that tracked gay priests – The Washington Post

A group of conservative Colorado Catholics has spent millions of dollars to buy mobile app tracking data that identified priests who used gay dating and hookup apps and then shared it with bishops around the country. The secretive effort was the work of a Denver nonprofit called Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal, whose trustees…

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Large Brands Are Still Advertising on Made-for-Advertising Sites

Almost a year after the industry outcry over made-for-advertising inventory and months since many ad-tech firms have devised solutions to address the problem, ads from large brands are still being served on spammy websites, new research from Adalytics has found. Adalytics found examples of hundreds of large brands advertising on made-for-advertising websites, facilitated by most…

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How Google is killing independent sites like ours – HouseFresh

Google regularly launches updates to its algorithm to continuously improve search results quality. Think of these updates as a refresh of the system where rankings change: some websites see an improvement while others see a decline. At HouseFresh, we keep an eye on Google’s news and documentation because these updates can literally make or break…

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Attack Of The Clones: Programmatic’s Hidden Scourge Of Bid Duplication | AdExchanger

Programmatic auctions are creating so many carbon copies of themselves, it’s threatening to topple the entire structure of programmatic. The bid duplication is getting so extreme, buyers are starting to take notice of this strange behavior. Instead of seeing the whole universe of bid opportunities, demand-side platforms see only a small portion of inventory copied…

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WFA response to Adalytics report on Google Search advertising – World Federation of Advertisers

A new report published on November 28th, based on data from Adalytics (an ‘Ad quality and transparency platform’), reveals a number of potential transparency and brand safety concerns with regards to Google Search advertising, and in particular, Google Search Partner network. WFA is in dialogue with Adalytics and Google, and many other partners, to further…

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Google’s Search Partner network comes under fire in research underlining brand safety vulnerabilities – Digiday

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…

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As Musk endorses antisemitic conspiracy theory, X has been placing ads for Apple, Bravo, IBM, Oracle, and Xfinity next to pro-Nazi content | Media Matters for America

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…

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Year of the Living Dead

A year ago Elon Musk took over Twitter. Too much has happened in the 365 days that followed to even begin to chronicle it all here, but the short version is that he quickly fired 80% of the staff, broke a bunch of things, paid racists, misogynists, and homophobes to set up shop, picked (sometimes…

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