Taboola to go public at $2.6B valuation
axios.com
axios.com
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!
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.
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.
Where did you get this from? Have they published the relative revenues?
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.
I just hope that my new fridge will continue to keep my food cold after I smash the screen with a hammer.
Hmm, the plot of Brazil becomes every day more realistic. Ah, what times were living!
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.
Let me get mildly intoxicated in relative peace, thank you.
Plus you're ignoring how privacy invasive most EVs are, especially Tesla. They track everything you do.
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...
I'm so looking forward to home EV charging.
Regardless, it bothered me.
If they’re not tracking your demographic data yet, they’re trying to...
>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...
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.
Munich Mathäser cinema already has this, there's an LCD screen embedded into the urinal.
That future is now, and has been for many years in NL. The logical next step is personalized ads based on the number plate.
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.
Regarding LCDs at urinals, I remember seeing those for the first time, maybe 10+ years ago in Las Vegas.
Remember, any moment of attention can be monetized through advertising - and therefore it should be. Any tine a person is thinking their own thoughts is a wasted opportunity.
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.
Of course these glasses can be free: for the glasses to project other ads on those screens ;-)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telescreen
out of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four
by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell
Welcome to your future past... :-)
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.
This would tempt me to aim very high...
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.
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.
This exists in the United States. Good thing EVs don't have this problem.
Child's crayon drawing + magnet = problem solved.
You need to use a non-dns method of filtering them out
Bonus: add (^|\.)outbrain\.com$ too while you’re at it.
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!
We're inching closer to the episode of Black Mirror where everyone is forced to stare at ads all day
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
So it's terrible, unless you can trust every device on your network.
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.
I mean, sure, Google's worried about your ISP logging your queries and selling the data... because that would compete with Google's business of logging your web activity and selling ads based on it. DoH isn't a privacy technology at that point, it's a anti-competition play.
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.
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)
The answer is "sleazy bottomfeeders", if the Taboola ads I've seen are any indication. Supplements, worthless insurance, colon cleansers, and the like.
This company should be sued to death instead of going public. Our slow to catch up legislation is to blame.
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.
> 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
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.
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?
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.
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.)
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!"
Google, Facebook, and others get a lot of justified criticism for abusive business practices and invasion of privacy, but at least they also provide some kind of arguably valuable service in return. Taboola and Outbrain on the other hand are malignant parasites, utterly devoid of any imaginable redeeming qualities.
If I could flip a switch and erase both companies from existence, I would absolutely do it without a moment's hesitation.
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.
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.
Taboola is the lowest of the lowest when it comes to advertising. 100% pure trash.
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?
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...
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?
/s
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.
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.
At least I get actual brands on Google or Facebook, Taboola has absolutely nothing other than literal spam.