[HN Gopher] Taboola to go public at $2.6B valuation
___________________________________________________________________
Taboola to go public at $2.6B valuation
Author : TechBro8615
Score : 80 points
Date : 2021-01-25 14:56 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.axios.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.axios.com)
| [deleted]
| KoftaBob wrote:
| "When the founders look back at their life and see "litter the
| internet with garbage" as their biggest accomplishment, I wonder
| if the money will be worth it."
| erostrate wrote:
| Taboola relies on the open web for its existence, but by
| littering it with their garbage for a quick buck they are
| contributing to drive people towards walled gardens. It's a self-
| destructive company. It reminds me of this fishing technique
| where they scrape the whole ocean floor with huge nets, slowly
| destroying the whole ecosystem in order to get a few more low
| quality fish.
| flixic wrote:
| Can't wait for their S-1 filing. For a business as distasteful as
| this, there should be quite a few gems and interesting risks.
| rattray wrote:
| I don't think there will be one, since they're doing a SPAC
| merger. They're not doing an IPO, but rather merging with an
| empty holding company that's already done one.
| perardi wrote:
| Ahhhh, wonderful, joining the eminent, definitely not a scam
| at all, no sir, firms like Nikola Motors.
| r00fus wrote:
| Is that a common exploit for going public?
| rattray wrote:
| Yes, increasingly so. The froth of 2020 has led to a big
| increase in the use of SPACs, despite them previously being
| viewed as super sketchy.
|
| https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/spac.asp
| [deleted]
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Does anyone on HN actually LIKE taboos/outbrain recommendations?
| I hide them with ublock origin and completely ignore the ones
| that slip through.
| estebarb wrote:
| For our own sanity I hope it gets shorted to zero...
| shreyshrey wrote:
| So how many will buy this stock (TBLA) thinking it is TSLA?
| pradn wrote:
| I am being harsh, but this company is the equivalent of a
| chemical company that poisons the river. Sure, there's a benefit
| of revenue for publishers (powering journalism and other writing
| / photography / video), but it's so obnoxious and no where near
| anyone's idea of a worthwhile content. It's like praising litter
| for having been the product of a sale, benefiting whoever.
| iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote:
| I like this analogy a lot. Nature has a special place for us so
| conservation is (mostly) obvious, including ideas like negative
| externalities. But I agree with you that we should be thinking
| of the online world in the same way, even if its not as
| existential as a clean environment. Companies that profit by
| destroying the value of the web, like Taboola and other
| listicle or content farms should be held accountable for
| lowering the internet's quality for everyone.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| If there is any company in the world that should be burned to the
| ground for the sake of all humanity, Taboola is definitely one of
| them. Outbrain is the other. I wish they had actually merged to
| save us the time of destroying both.
|
| Their product is horrible and without redemption. But let me make
| it clear that the people that work there are also as horrible -
| try criticizing them on Twitter and watch the bots and employees
| attack.
|
| They provide nothing of any value in any way whatsoever. It's
| pure scam. If they disappeared tomorrow the world would literally
| become a better place in real, measurable ways.
|
| I've had a PiHole set up for years explicitly to block them. No
| other service I can imagine is built on such lies, falsehoods,
| deceit and fraud. They are pure garbage. Hatred doesn't even
| begin to describe my antipathy towards them.
|
| Taboola employees reading this? You're all trash.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Taboola and Outbrain _were nearly_ the same company. A merger
| announced in 2019 fell through. Invalidating my "Save a match
| with this one weird trick!" joke.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/business/media/online-adv...
|
| (I'd not read the update in the Axios article initially,
| apologies, and edited.)
| russellbeattie wrote:
| I had to do the same thing with my comment, actually. The
| deal just fell apart in September apparently.
|
| We'll just have to use two matches.
|
| "15 ways that fire bombing trash ad companies will improve
| our lives. Number 10 will shock you!"
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| >"Singolda tells Axios that he sees any sort of open web device,
| whether it being a smart refrigerator or a smart TV, one day
| being able to use Taboola's technology to power content
| recommendations."
|
| Oh god no. If chumbox advertising gets integrated into IoT
| devices I'm getting a PiHole for my sanity.
|
| >"While Taboola relies mostly on artificial intelligence to power
| content recommendations, Singolda says the company has invested
| in hiring over 50 full-time human moderation to ensure that every
| piece of content on its site is approved."
|
| I use uBlock Origin religiously, but from what I can tell most
| Taboola recommendations are the same 15 or so clickbait topics
| repeated ad infinitum. Woman mid shout, guy holding credit card,
| lotus fruit, some weird berry that's supposed to cure something,
| skin disorder, etc.
| asiachick wrote:
| Just don't buy IoT devices that have ads (or period)?
| safog wrote:
| It'll eventually become the default. Every single new fridge
| will have a display. And that display will have ads.
| sjg007 wrote:
| Aftermarket in old fridge doors. Unless they put DRM in to
| stop the compressor from running I'm not sure how they'd
| prevent it.
| elliekelly wrote:
| My fridge uses DRM to check the filter. I'm sure they
| won't forget the doors. And I bet they'll be attached via
| some obscure proprietary screwdriver head that's
| unavailable to the public.
| burnte wrote:
| My Samsung TV has built in ads, which I HATE. I want a dumb
| TV. Apps built into TVs generally suck because to keep the
| BOM cost down they put in the cheapest SoC that will
| function, leaving the apps sluggish, jerky, and frequently
| cut down in features. On my previous LG TV I couldn't turn
| off motion smoothing on the bui8lt in video streaming apps.
| With the Samsung TV I just don't connect it to the network
| because there are ads that you cannot disable.
| anonAndOn wrote:
| "Kids, that ugly, old refrigerator without a screen sitting
| in the garage is worth a lot of money and is your
| inheritance."
| ogre_codes wrote:
| People like nice clean looking kitchens. A kitchen with a
| display flashing crap does not fit into that.
|
| I'm sure some percentage of fridges will have displays
| flashing shitty adverts all day long, but there will be a
| large number of fridges that are just decent looking boxes
| with stainless, black, or white doors.
|
| With TVs I'm afraid we're screwed though. Adding a brain
| and wifi to a TV is super cheap now and manufacturers have
| already figured out how to monetize having a smart TV in
| your house even without advertising.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| _> If chumbox advertising gets integrated into IoT devices I 'm
| getting a PiHole for my sanity._
|
| I tend to think of something like this as more of a "move to a
| cabin in the woods" scenario, but I suppose that could be a
| workable compromise.
|
| In all seriousness, I'm morbidly curious as to how chumbox
| "technology" would apply to TV show and whatever kind of
| "content" recommendations would go on a smart fridge.
| Viscerally unsettling thumbnails that have tested for maximum
| conversion? Perfect for the kitchen!
| alexjplant wrote:
| I thought it was an obscure regionalism for a refrigerator...
| that definition makes far more sense grammatically.
| impendia wrote:
| It seems this is the natural endgame, every refrigerator will
| come with an LCD screen on the front that advertises at you.
|
| I just hope that my new fridge will continue to keep my food
| cold after I smash the screen with a hammer.
| RankingMember wrote:
| My experience with modern refrigerators tells me that the
| fridge will likely _not_ continue to keep your food cold
| after the crappy display fails, whether by hammer or
| otherwise.
| jostmey wrote:
| It will make people like us look crazy! People will walk into
| our homes and see smashed and covered ad-screens
| reaperducer wrote:
| _It seems this is the natural endgame, every refrigerator
| will come with an LCD screen on the front that advertises at
| you._
|
| Child's crayon drawing + magnet = problem solved.
| dylan604 wrote:
| The hacker part of this website would investigate taking the
| LCD screen out, and repurposing it. We all know that DIY
| robot that goes to the fridge to bring you a snack will need
| some sort of LCD screen to act as an interface for you to
| choose the snack. It's not like we're going to use an iPad
| for that. We're too busy putting those in our cars.
| thedrbrian wrote:
| Don't do that. Use it as spare parts for a new project. When
| the screens do come out they'll probably run some flavour of
| android so it might be flashable.
| rtkwe wrote:
| I've just never connected my smart tv to the wifi to avoid
| that fate.
| eecc wrote:
| Don't, they'll add some routine that makes you tap on some
| "agree" button and shut down the whole darn thing
| otherwise... I have an idea: under the perverse excuse of
| delivering firmware updates for your own network safety!!!
|
| Hmm, the plot of Brazil becomes every day more realistic. Ah,
| what times were living!
| umvi wrote:
| Well hopefully we can figure out ways to integrate
| advertising so deeply into every aspect of our lives that you
| can no longer escape marketing with pi holes and hammers.
| Imagine using a public urinal and you can watch an LCD screen
| while taking care of business. Filling up your car with gas?
| Fill your mind with ads while you do it! Imagine glasses that
| show augmented-reality ads based on your current location and
| what you are looking at, that would be incredible. Any place
| people rest their eyeballs should contain ads. Digital
| picture frames that show family photos in your home should
| occasionally flash ads, etc. Hopefully the National Park
| Service can install some satellite base stations so that
| hikers and campers can get the urgent advertising they need
| to be aware of the latest survival gear while out in nature.
| Basically, we need to prevent people from having quiet time
| and thinking - we need to come with as many ways as possible
| to aggressively interrupt and intrude thoughts with gentle
| reminders that the economy needs stimulating and that the
| only way to truly be happy is with more stuff.
| frakt0x90 wrote:
| The urinal and gas station ones are right up the street
| from me and I don't visit either of those facilities
| anymore for that reason.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| My corner gas station just rolled out new machines that
| start playing advertisements on the LCD screens as soon
| as the pump starts dispensing gas. It made me
| irrationally angry. One, that I have to deal with even
| more mental pollution in my daily life. And two, that the
| person who created this business model realized that
| pump-goers are quite literally a captive audience and
| that's the best way to force someone to watch an ad.
|
| I complained to the manager and I've never been back.
| Sadly, part of me knows it's just a matter of time before
| other gas stations gets these new machines.
| ridaj wrote:
| Better fix: switch to an EV!
| masklinn wrote:
| Now you get to listen to ads for 15mn instead if 2!
| driverdan wrote:
| Spend $40k to avoid some ads at a gas station? I hate ads
| but come on...
|
| Plus you're ignoring how privacy invasive most EVs are,
| especially Tesla. They track everything you do.
| novok wrote:
| I'm sorry to break it to you, but most new gas cars are
| the same. New Toyotas have it, GM has had it for quite a
| while with OnStar, Ford probably has it, and if I
| bothered to dig more, almost all of them have it
| somewhere, cellular modem included.
|
| It's an industry problem at this point, and I really
| think some day we will have a mass terrorist disaster
| where some psychotic hacker group would hack all the
| badly secured cars everywhere, link into the CAN bus
| (because that is a GREAT idea for some braindead
| synergistic middle manager reasons) and cause run-away
| accelerations simultaneously everywhere on some clock
| script, killing millions and destroying trillions.
|
| I'm 50/50 hoping someone makes a popular movie about
| that, to scare governments world wide to force cars to
| have a fucking no network mode and no connections to the
| CAN bus and terrified if it would inspire said teenage
| psychopaths to do so...
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| Buy a Chevy Bolt or a Hyundai/Kia, pretty easy to remove
| the modem from those.
| dylan604 wrote:
| You could stand there and be the captive audience you
| complain about, or you could choose to do something more
| productive with your life. Take the time it takes to fill
| up your tank to clean the windows, check the oil level in
| your car, check the air pressure in your tires, or just
| inspect the tires for wear patterns, etc.
| buckminster wrote:
| Where I live you need to hold a trigger on the nozzle.
| You can't wander off and do something else.
| djrogers wrote:
| That's what a tube of chapstick is for. My dad's been
| doing that for >50yrs, and I have continued the tradition
| at gas stations that remove the trigger lock.
| psadauskas wrote:
| Most of the gas pumps with ads I've seen are the kind
| with 4 arrow buttons on either side. If you push the 2nd
| button down on the right side, it'll mute the audio, and
| you can go back to listening to traffic and breathing
| fumes in peace.
|
| https://imgur.com/a/D7ZIR
| bilegeek wrote:
| Unfortunately, some gas stations have already disabled
| the mute button; in my personal experience, Speedway was
| the first in doing that. It's only a matter of time 'til
| all stations do that.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Phew. The last thing I wanted to associate with the sweet
| sweet gas fumes was an ad.
|
| Let me get mildly intoxicated in relative peace, thank
| you.
| npsimons wrote:
| > Sadly, part of me knows it's just a matter of time
| before other gas stations gets these new machines.
|
| I'm _so_ looking forward to home EV charging.
| mikestew wrote:
| _Imagine using a public urinal and you can watch an LCD
| screen while taking care of business._
|
| It's the obvious next step from existing paper ads, and I'm
| surprised that it has taken this long.
|
| _Filling up your car with gas? Fill your mind with ads
| while you do it!_
|
| Shell was doing that 30 years ago.
|
| _Hopefully the National Park Service can install some
| satellite base stations..._
|
| Not yet, but the state of WA has already sold ad space on
| their outdoor (camping/hiking permits and the like) web
| sites.
|
| Your dystopian future is already here.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| ThatsTheJoke.jpg
| [deleted]
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > Filling up your car with gas? Fill your mind with ads
| while you do it!
|
| Shell gas stations already do this where I live. There is
| an LCD panel with blaring audio above the pumps.
|
| I no longer buy Shell gas.
| johnbrodie wrote:
| Most pumps around here will mute the sound by pressing
| the right button, second from the top, beside the screen.
| Some pumps require a different button to mute so I just
| spam all the buttons around the screen if at a new
| station. They are incredibly loud and obnoxious
| sometimes.
| Gys wrote:
| We will also have AR glasses that automatically cover all
| screens around you with a color or your own photos.
|
| Of course these glasses can be free: for the glasses to
| project other ads on those screens ;-)
| reaperducer wrote:
| You just described the world of Max Headroom, where TVs
| were everywhere, and having an off switch would get you
| prison time.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Imagine using a public urinal and you can watch an LCD
| screen while taking care of business._
|
| This exists. I've seen it in Las Vegas. There's also a
| video screen on the faucet, and in the mirror for when you
| wash your hands.
|
| _Filling up your car with gas? Fill your mind with ads
| while you do it!_
|
| I've also seen this. Also in Las Vegas. I remember that
| Cheddar provided the content.
| Mediterraneo10 wrote:
| > Imagine using a public urinal and you can watch an LCD
| screen while taking care of business.
|
| Paper ads at the urinal are already common in some
| countries, because advertisers know that you have no choice
| but to look straight ahead. Now that you mention it, it is
| surprising that LCDs haven't been installed yet.
| mbrameld wrote:
| I remember seeing video screens above the urinals in a
| parking garage in Maastricht, Netherlands some time
| between 2004 and 2006. They primarily showed ads, but
| also had a camera pointed at you, so you'd be watching an
| ad and then it would switch to showing your face. The
| camera also tilted and would begin tilting down. It would
| get your heart racing, but it only tilted down a few
| degrees before it tilted back up so it never showed your
| dangley bits.
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| Fareway, a grocery store headquartered in Iowa with stores
| in Iowa and all surrounding states except Wisconsin, has
| tablets in the checkout queue area with a camera to show
| ads. I'm not sure if they just use tablets as a low cost
| device with a screen and internet connection, or if they're
| determining demographic info from the video (and possibly
| correlating it to transactions at the POS).
|
| Regardless, it bothered me.
| w1 wrote:
| It was one of these?
|
| https://getpopspots.com/
|
| If they're not tracking your demographic data yet,
| they're trying to...
| monkeybutton wrote:
| They definitely are or will be soon. From their own blog:
|
| >Thanks to the computer vision technology built into
| every one of our displays, we can track metrics
| previously limited to online advertising. For example,
| impressions are the standard currency for online
| advertising, but they aren't yet the norm in the DOOH
| industry and when they are provided they're a rough
| estimate. Unlike most DOOH displays, Popspots displays
| only run content when consumers are physically present,
| which means there's a direct relation between plays and
| impressions. Popspots displays also count the number of
| consumers present and whether they're watching the
| advertisement on a second-by-second basis. Using this
| data, marketers can understand exactly how many consumers
| they've reached and assess the effectiveness of their
| creative.
|
| https://getpopspots.com/blog/measuring-consumer-
| engagement-i...
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| Yes, I believe it was.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| A lot of gas stations have started doing this, as well.
| Ads while you pump gas.
| kickout wrote:
| I'm all too familiar with Fareway. Knowing their budget
| ethos, no way they are spending $$$ to gleen demographic
| info.
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| I met one of their VP's and had a good 30 minute chat
| once. Budget ethos is definitely there. Outside of
| advertisements during the Iowa high school Athletics
| events, they didn't really spend on TV ads until ~2-3
| years ago when competition with ALDI and Hy-Vee seemed to
| dramatically increase.
|
| No idea on the business model for the ad tablet system,
| but I could see a model where they pay an amount to the
| store on a monthly basis. Perhaps they would pay more if
| the store would turn over transaction data, or the
| transaction data and demographics would be traded as
| mutually beneficial.
|
| They're very much not on the cutting edge of technology.
| I believe she said they didn't have email until ~2010.
| Store orders were submitted via fax to their distribution
| center.
|
| In some ways they're saving money (only looking at mature
| options in the market and absolutely avoiding snake oil
| salesmen), but even an Excel based ordering system on a
| dialup connection would have been a major labor savings
| for 2000-2010 compared to faxes.
| ChrisRR wrote:
| I don't know if it's just a UK thing, but we already have
| screen showing ads at many of our petrol pumps
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Imagine using a public urinal and you can watch an LCD
| screen while taking care of business.
|
| Munich Mathaser cinema already has this, there's an LCD
| screen embedded into the urinal.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Let's just say that if I were on a jury looking to
| convict someone who vandalized these screens I'd ignore
| all the evidence and let them go scot-free.
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Hard not to suspect that a giant display + embedded PC
| would also have a camera... "it was for eye-tracking,
| honest!"
| rorykoehler wrote:
| You joke but I can see the hiker thing with one click
| purchase and instant drone delivery becoming a popular
| service. You won't even have to prepare or carry anything
| with you to go into the wild.
| tremon wrote:
| _Filling up your car with gas? Fill your mind with ads
| while you do it!_
|
| That future is now, and has been for many years in NL. The
| logical next step is personalized ads based on the number
| plate.
| GrinningFool wrote:
| A few years ago Delta started force-feeding adverts to me
| pre-takeoff on the seatback screens. Pressing the off
| button turned it off for a moment, then it turned back on
| to continue the advert.
|
| That happened once, I haven't flown with them since. I
| don't look forward for the day when I will no longer have
| that option.
| thatfrenchguy wrote:
| > Filling up your car with gas? Fill your mind with ads
| while you do it!
|
| This exists in the United States. Good thing EVs don't have
| this problem.
| maest wrote:
| I was shocked to see ads at gas stations and in cabs in
| the US. Truly dystopian.
| npsimons wrote:
| You sir, more than my introversion and social anxiety, more
| than COVID-19, have convinced me I should never leave my
| house again. Ever.
| perardi wrote:
| The day my god-forsaken fridge presents me with a Taboola
| chumbox is the day I go full Amish and retire to a hut on my
| farmland in southern Illinois.
| ChrisRR wrote:
| Who the hell would want clickbait ads streamed to their fridge?
| This is awful idea
|
| We're inching closer to the episode of Black Mirror where
| everyone is forced to stare at ads all day
| m4tthumphrey wrote:
| One step closer to 15 million merits [0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| The ad industry is prepared for this. DNS-over-HTTPS will
| ignore your PiHole, and lovingly bring you ads anyways. While
| you can turn DoH off in your browser, your IoT device will not
| be so configurable. And will most likely fail to work entirely
| if you block access to Google's DoH endpoint.
|
| DoH is an incredibly user hostile technology designed to remove
| your agency to control your network traffic, and by and large,
| the majority of tech enthusiasts have _cheered for it_.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| DoH removes the agency of the _network provider_. This is
| great if you can 't trust the network.
|
| If I used my ISPs DNS resolver it wouldn't allow me to access
| sci-hub. I can trivially use Googles DNS, but if that where
| to change DoH would save me.
|
| The other problem is solvable by not buying an IOT device
| with a screen. I can't buy a dumb TV, but I do okay with my
| current one and my computer monitor.
| flyinghamster wrote:
| > DoH is an incredibly user hostile technology designed to
| remove your agency to control your network traffic
|
| I view it as more of a double-edged sword. It can be very
| handy if you have a hostile ISP playing shenanigans with DNS
| or logging your queries and selling the data, but as you
| point out, it's also useful for bad actors as well.
| burnte wrote:
| 1. DoH is a user configurable setting, it cannot be dictated
| by ad vendors or websites.
|
| 2. DoH fails back to standard DNS.
|
| 3. DoH is hard to filter, just like other TLS encrypted
| traffic.
|
| 4. DoH is a user FRIENDLY technology meant to increase user
| privacy and reduce DNS hijacking.
|
| 5. Don't like it? Turn it off. Only you have that power to
| enable or disable it.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| DoH can be enforced by user-hostile devices and
| applications.
|
| Including Internet-of-shit infested appliances and devices.
|
| With 5G SIMS embedded and financed at rock-bottom mass-
| contract data-dribble rates via advertising, other revenue
| flow, or up-front / ongoing purchase revenue streams, WiFi
| LAN egress controls --- PiHole or other DNS blocklists, or
| IP and protocol firewalls --- simply won't be effective.
| ohazi wrote:
| You're confusing DoH in "friendly" browsers like Firefox,
| where you and I might deliberately turn it on to thwart ISP
| shenanigans. In that case, it's good that DoH is hard to
| filter and looks like all other TLS traffic.
|
| But the parent is correctly describing DoH as a double-
| edged sword. The same properties that make it good for you
| and me when trying to safely access domain data make it a
| weapon for rogue IoT devices who want to do the same.
|
| Your smart fridge could easily include software that allows
| it to acquire _its own_ secure DNS info from a DoH network
| run by the smart fridge manufacturer. This would allow them
| to find the domains behind the chumbox ads that they want
| to show you in spite of your PiHole. Since the manufacturer
| would be doing this to get around a user 's desired network
| configuration, it'll be configurable for _them_ , not for
| _you_. You will not be the "owner" of this device.
| ryandrake wrote:
| It'll be an arms race. DNS-based blackholes would give way to
| IP-by-IP firewall rules.
|
| I remember when personal firewalls were mostly about blocking
| threats coming in through _incoming_ connections. Now, I use
| mine more to block threats already on my network from
| exfiltrating through _outgoing_ connections.
| user22 wrote:
| FYI: pihole does not block taboola ads because they are not
| served from a separate network that can be filtered.
|
| You need to use a non-dns method of filtering them out
| manigandham wrote:
| The vast majority of these ads are rendered by JS from a
| third-party domain so they can be filtered out easily with
| DNS.
| hasperdi wrote:
| Oh yeah for sure you can block it using PiHole. Just add
| (^|\\.)taboola\\.com$ to your blacklist.
|
| Bonus: add (^|\\.)outbrain\\.com$ too while you're at it.
| NortySpock wrote:
| Thanks for the reminder, just added it to my house-wide
| blocklist.
| 650REDHAIR wrote:
| I bought a Pi Zero W awhile back and it sat in my desk for like
| a year. While going through my desk about a month ago I decided
| to take 10 minutes to set it up and regret not doing it sooner!
| The little thing is pretty amazing. I've since moved the Pi
| Zero W to my travel bag paired with my travel modem and
| upgraded to a regular Pi at home!
| samdung wrote:
| an interesting reading on the economics of chumbox ads:
| https://themargins.substack.com/p/taboola-outbrain-and-the-c...
| rattray wrote:
| This was interesting, but didn't go deep enough - where do all
| these ads ultimately lead to $$ transactions? Do they only end
| up selling legit products that are advertised non-
| manipulatively, like the hearing aids?
| whoisjuan wrote:
| "5 signs that you're about to have stroke"... Shows a photo of
| something common like someone scratching their arm.
|
| Taboola is the lowest of the lowest when it comes to advertising.
| 100% pure trash.
| youngtaff wrote:
| $2.6B worth of shite...
| [deleted]
| gundmc wrote:
| It's not an exaggeration to say that my opinion of a site drops
| dramatically when I see a trashy Tabula feed. I'm looking at you,
| Fivethirtyeight.
| jyriand wrote:
| Are SPAC's some kind of new financial inventions? I see this term
| popping up quite frequently.
| loganfrederick wrote:
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2020/11/19/the-loom...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Are SPAC 's some kind of new financial inventions?_
|
| Relatively recent, yes. Special purpose acquisition companies
| (SPACs) are a re-branding and evolution of the 1980s' blank
| cheque companies [1].
|
| [1]
| https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl...
| guyzero wrote:
| People complain about Google but Taboola is a hundred times more
| toxic with their garbage ads cluttering up the bottom half of so
| many media sites' pages. Being shown the same ad for shoes a
| hundred times the day after I bought them is nothing next to
| shock-image ads into content farms.
| Mc_Big_G wrote:
| Proving yet again that anyone can get rich as long as they don't
| have any morals.
| projektfu wrote:
| I still don't understand why publishers use these ads. At best
| they annoy your readers. At worst people leave your site and give
| revenue or eyeballs somewhere else. Since publishers are in the
| impression business, shouldn't they be selling ads that make
| revenue by impression instead of by click? My dream is for
| publishers to wise up suddenly, leaving Taboola and its
| underwriters holding the bag.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| At best someone accidentally clicks on one of the little
| adverts and you earn $0.01. On a busy site, accidental clicks
| alone have to earn a few dollars a day.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| At the risk of your site's reputation, of course.
| celestialcheese wrote:
| For big sites, you can negotiate 80% revshare + guaranteed
| minimums. This is huge for smoothing out cash-flow in low CPM
| quarters and is one of the most valuable ad slots available to
| pubs
| schwinn140 wrote:
| Taboola, Outbrain, et al are the bottom of the barrel as it
| relates to the space of monetized and amplified content
| recommendations.
|
| Literal clickbait designed to pray on the poorly informed.
|
| From an advertising perspective, their targeting "AI" is
| nonsense.
|
| The fact that they are cashing out isn't upsetting. The fact that
| countless, I would assume tens of millions of users, have been
| duped to click on this drudge is most disheartening.
| tartoran wrote:
| Honestly I'd be embarrassed if I were an engineer working for
| taboola/outbrain. It's a job yes, but I wouldn't advertise it
| to my friends at all.
| [deleted]
| whalesalad wrote:
| It is remarkable to me that a company that produces so little
| value to the consumer is worth SO much. There is a LOT of cash to
| be made in the dark-pattern cracks of society.
| r00fus wrote:
| Possibly because digital policy doesn't seem to move quickly in
| the US. Taboola only exists because we don't have effective
| consumer policy and that's because we have a dysfunctional
| political system.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| If I had a top 5 list for who killed the internet I loved, this
| would be on it.
| bserge wrote:
| > the company has invested in hiring over 50 full-time human
| moderation
|
| I just can't help but laugh at this. Over 50 people, so likely
| under 60. For a company serving 500 million daily active users
| and 1 trillion aids/month...
|
| Just comedy gold.
|
| And these people are on minimum wage, and we don't even know in
| what country. Churn rate ~90%/month. But that's just a side joke.
|
| _This_ is what people value, middlemen trading trash for cash.
|
| $2.6 billion, fuck my whole life.
| KoftaBob wrote:
| Taboola and Outbrain are both purveyors of absolute garbage
| clickbait ads of the lowest quality.
|
| The founders of those two companies are the modern day version of
| snake oil salesmen, and they know it. They probably don't care,
| since they're clearly motivated purely by greed, not by any sense
| of pride in what they're building.
|
| I don't normally have opinions this strong about a company, but
| man do they take pride in insulting the intelligence of every
| user who sees their ads.
| tylerrobinson wrote:
| > A chumbox or chumbucket is a form of online advertising that
| uses a grid of thumbnails and captions to drive traffic to other
| sites and webpages. This form of advertising is often associated
| with low quality "clickbait" links and articles. The term derives
| from the fishing practice of "chumming", the use of fish meat as
| a lure for fish.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chumbox
|
| This word is used in the article and while I'm quite familiar
| with the thing, I didn't know it had a name. Very fitting for the
| low-quality content that it contains!
| u678u wrote:
| I hate these ads as much as anyone else, but realistically these
| are one of the main competitors we're relying on to keep the web
| open and away from Google and Facebook right?
| ev1 wrote:
| They are arguably worse, more violating than both of those, and
| exclusively serve malware or fraud/unwanted porn/gore.
|
| At least I get actual brands on Google or Facebook, Taboola has
| absolutely nothing other than literal spam.
| ChrisRR wrote:
| Do you want a giant douche or a turd sandwich?
| manuelabeledo wrote:
| While competition is good, do we really want this kind of
| competition?
|
| Google ads became popular precisely because they were light and
| non invasive. These quite aggressively take a chunk of the
| screen real estate, and sometimes are very disruptive, e.g.
| when they put them between articles and comments.
| 55555 wrote:
| No they became popular because they paid publishers better
| because they had more data for targeting.
| rattray wrote:
| It seems to me that services like Taboola are something like
| manipulation-laundering services, providing enough room between
| deception and a product sold to circumvent the FTC's truth in
| advertising rules.
|
| Could someone with more knowledge comment - is that at all right?
| Is there more to it? Could rule tweaks at the FTC have an impact
| on this?
| stewx wrote:
| Nice guys finish last.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| I don't see taboola chumboxes with ublock on the "block all"
| setting, with FF, and gradually allow JS elements if needed. I
| used to like doing this with NoScript.
|
| Sometimes I have to change browser for banking or specific
| shopping, and I have separate (non uBlock) browsers that i use
| strictly for work.
|
| Reading the high level dislike of taboola, I wonder what is
| preventing people from using uBlock to zap Taboola?
| gorhill wrote:
| Taboola is blocked by default in uBlock Origin.
| [deleted]
| arcturus17 wrote:
| Taboola and Outbrain have disgusting products. Their
| recommendations lead to content that is sketchy at best, and
| their business model is to pry on the unsuspecting at scale. I
| would say there is no harm done in wasting people's time here and
| there, but I bet they're hyper-agressive in data collection and
| privacy violations.
|
| These types of companies are the very definition of extractive
| elite: they provide close to nothing of value and yet soak up a
| bunch of profits in the hands of a few.
|
| I'd be happy to hear someone refute my claims, especially the
| latter.
| sjg007 wrote:
| I don't know how they make money...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| They embed their ads on news sites, style them to look like
| legitimate articles, and prey on the vulnerable. Same
| methodology as the "your Social Security number has been
| suspended" scam calls.
| tartoran wrote:
| Who pays to have their ads displayed by a chumbox? Probably
| smaller players but I can't imagine a reputable company to
| post ads in that toxic environment, it really does look
| bad.
| joering2 wrote:
| Smaller players? I know a "small" biz that does $45,000 a
| day with Taboola. They do it because sadly their scammy
| ads work on vulnerable population.
| graaben wrote:
| Ad arbitrage - essentially buy a click on Taboola for
| $0.20 and send the user to your sham website that
| displays ads from a separate network (Ad sense, Facebook,
| or one of the seedier options) and hope you get that user
| to click an ad that pays you $0.22. Make a little bit of
| money while making the world a little bit worse.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Major new sites, mostly magazine publishers, were doing
| this. Washington Post, TIME, Newsweek, and CNN as I
| recall. Five-thirt-eight according to comments here. Some
| may have dropped them by now, many were discussing this
| as negative brand value within recent years.
|
| Previous discussion:
|
| https://themargins.substack.com/p/taboola-outbrain-and-
| the-c... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20409693)
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/business/media/online-
| adv... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21175145)
| ceejayoz wrote:
| They're talking about the other end of things - the
| companies placing ads, not the ones hosting them.
|
| The answer is "sleazy bottomfeeders", if the Taboola ads
| I've seen are any indication. Supplements, worthless
| insurance, colon cleansers, and the like.
| tartoran wrote:
| That is correct. I've seen tabula/outbrain around on
| cnn/bbc/time etc until I blocked it and am aware that
| these publishers make use of taboola/outbrain for
| revenue. However, I was wondering what company puts the
| actual advert through these deceptive bottomfeeders.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Ah, got it.
| dumpHero2 wrote:
| If you see sketchy ads on a website that's not supposed to be
| sketchy. Its probably taboola or outbrain. They often use near
| NSFW images (sexual & gore) in their click baits. I remember a
| few years ago, they'd also install malware on your system to
| change the default search engine to a Google lookalike. There
| were numerous articles online on "how to remove taboola
| malware".
|
| This company should be sued to death instead of going public.
| Our slow to catch up legislation is to blame.
| joering2 wrote:
| I couldn't upvote this enough. But if you know Adam a little
| bit as I do, you would know he is a perfect fit for a slimy
| garbage Taboola and Outbrain are delivering. Its not a
| surprise really. And mostly its snake oils sales crap that
| eventually should be outright banned.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I'm intrigued, can you tell us more?
| alibrarydweller wrote:
| In case it's not obvious, Taboola hasn't been making money by
| connecting people to content they want to read, but rather by
| selling passive tracking data.
|
| If a browser goes to ten sites which have Taboola boxes on them,
| then Taboola can sell the history of that cookie and its browsing
| history to a targeting company. If the targeting company has a
| cookie of its own in the same place as a chumbox then the company
| is able to map everything Taboola knows to everything they know.
|
| Given the efforts of Apple, Google and Mozilla to choke off this
| type of tech (third party cookie tracking) it's interesting their
| valuation is this high. I guess they can still make much of
| counting anonymous visits and mapping them back to IPs for sale.
| lopatin wrote:
| Not that they don't do this but I'm not sure selling data is
| their main source of money. I think their ad placements are
| actually that valuable. Click-bait sells extremely well when
| it's manipulative enough and displayed to a wealthy
| demographic. About 10 years ago you would pay $.1 to $1 for a
| click from a soccer mom on Fox News. That's not search ads,
| that $1 per non-targeted display ad click. Which was insane
| back then, not sure now. I've also not touched ads for a decade
| so maybe I'm just behind the times.
|
| Edit: I actually credit Taboola and Outbrain with being the
| enablers of actual "fake news". There was a time when you could
| make a landing page that looks like the NYT, put an
| "advertisement" disclaimer in gray letters and 9pt font
| somewhere, and blast it on Taboola so people buy your
| supplements. Taboola was fully aware, just loved the money too
| much.
| 55555 wrote:
| Pump your stock price with this one weird trick (Hint: it's
| lying).
|
| > He says the company's main competition is "anyone in business
| of offering software revenue tools to publishers," including CMS
| providers, email servers, etc.
|
| > Singolda tells Axios that he sees any sort of open web device,
| whether it being a smart refrigerator or a smart TV, one day
| being able to use Taboola's technology to power content
| recommendations.
|
| > Taboola relies mostly on artificial intelligence to power
| content recommendations
| finiteloops wrote:
| Fairly certain the "artificial intelligence" they're describing
| are the rotten brains of anyone who works for that company.
| ourcat wrote:
| I'd say it's more like they're getting search data from
| Google.
|
| eg: I search on some medical condition (which I might or
| might not have) and the next thing I know, all Taboola
| 'chumbox' blocks are littered with 'ads' (which aren't ads
| that 'sell' anything) about said condition. Just extremely
| low quality links with zero value.
| gundmc wrote:
| That is not how Google works.
| ourcat wrote:
| Maybe I should have said 'via' Google.
| creato wrote:
| It would be pretty shocking if Google were sharing search
| data with anyone, let alone Taboola.
|
| Others in this thread mentioned that Taboola used to have
| literal malware that would replace Google with a google-
| lookalike. Maybe you have that malware?
| fooblat wrote:
| Taboola, Zergnet, Outbrain, and the like are half the reason I
| run a pihole. These companies and their ilk promote the worst of
| the worst of clickbait.
| llacb47 wrote:
| You won't believe what this adtech clickfarm was valued at! The
| results will shock you!
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| Money managers hate him! This guy invested in the Taboola IPO
| and you won't believe what happened next!
| yalogin wrote:
| Oh wow didn't know this is the company behind those annoying ads.
| On some sites, fivethirtyeight, its a infinite scroll list too.
| The worst thing I ever encountered. May be they fixed it now but
| it forced me to actually sign up for a fake email account and
| send an email to their staff about it.
|
| Its amazing that they are worth 2.4B dollars though. I get it
| that its used on almost every site but still seems a lot. Our
| estimates of value have been severely distorted by the last year.
| Not sure if things will ever go down or if its the new normal.
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