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Comment by arcturus17 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

I'm intrigued, can you tell us more?

I don't know how they make money...

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

Ah, got it.

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.

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