Hot topics click link for more
There’s a war going on in ad-land. Opposing forces are determined and dangerous. Coalitions are forming. Civilians flee the fighting.
Toward last week’s mid-point, AdBlock and AdBlock Plus software developer Eyeo GmbH set out a new ambition. The company has entered the evermore crowded realm of digital advertising aggregators. Yes, those same folks who attracted millions of ad-haters are selling ads.
Of course, their ad selling platform - Acceptable Ads Platform - weeds out bad ads according to its “pre-whitelisting” criteria. The idea originated five years ago, actually, asking digital and mobile publishers to negotiate proper compensation. The new version is totally automated, just like programmatic ad trading. This is, after all, the 21st Century. (See more about digital advertising here)
More than one observer has referred to a “war” between Facebook and AdBlock Plus due to tit-for-tat blows across the HTML code. Facebook’s business model - producing billions and billions depends on mobile advertising. Eyeo GmbH has apparently reverted to the favorite 1990’s business model - “and we’ll make a ton of money selling advertising.”
“We see the cynical move from Adblock Plus as a new string in their racket,” said IAB UK CEO Guy Phillipson in a statement (September 14). “Now they're saying to publishers ‘we took away some of your customers who didn't want ads, and now we are selling them back to you on commission’. Premium publishers who own great content, and provide a good ad experience, hold all the cards. More and more of them are offering ad blocking consumers a clear choice: turn off your ad blocking software or no access to our content.”
The IAB, World Federation of Advertisers, media buyer GroupM, several publishers, Google and Facebook announced coincident with the Eyeo GmbH announcement, and also at the Cologne Dmexco digital marketing fair, a new mutual-interest partnership - Coalition for Better Ads. Also participating, not insignificantly, are Procter & Gamble (P&G) and Unilever, the world’s biggest consumer products advertisers. All that fire-power is concentrated on saving ad people and their suppliers from ad blockers (think: whack-a-mole) and consumers weary of ad inundation.
Alarming threads connecting “illiberal” politicians with enabling news media are, most often, called out by the usual international media freedom watchers. Safety fears notwithstanding, local media reports excuses or looks the other way. A recent broadside in the Economist (September 13) pointing a finger at a privately owned television channel in the Czech Republic taking an editorial position complimentary to a xenophobic politician shows how the right to know extends to uncomfortable places.
“It’s not pretty reading,” said Czech news portal EuroZprávy.cz (September 14). It was not a new story. This past May an audio recording surfaced of TV Prima news director Jitka Obzinova and company deputy chairman Lubos Jetmar telling the station’s editorial staff to report negatively about refugees. To underscore that directive, the news staff was told the decision came from the owners and “one just doesn’t talk back to God.” (See earlier story here)
TV Prima is a joint venture of Czech financial services company GES Group, principally owned by Ivan Zack, “a businessman seen as close to the country’s populist left-wing president, Milos Zeman,” noted the Economist. “Mr Zeman has been among Europe’s most paranoid opponents of the refugees, and TV Prima has echoed his line.” The other partner is Swedish media house Modern Times Group (MTG), a point missed by the Economist. (See more about TV news here)
Fingers were similarly pointed by the Economist (November 3, 2009) at certain gratuities demanded by Hungarian politicians in exchange for broadcast license renewals and subsequent grants to political cronies, precipitating an exodus by foreign investors. The recent article mentioned the evaporation of foreign-owned publishing houses from Central and Eastern Europe but not the long battle between RTL Group and the Hungarian government, truce apparently holding, and Time Warner’s disorderly takeover of Central European Media Enterprises (CME), operating in the Czech Republic and Romania.
A local prosecutor in Hungary brought misdemeanor “breaching the peace” charges against Petra Laszlo, a video photographer once employed by far-right TV channel N1TV, for kicking and tripping refugees a year ago, reported BBC News (September 8). Video of that episode, recorded by German news channel RTL Aktuell, went viral and brought international condemnation. She was fired from the TV channel, later apologized and said she might relocate to Russia. The prosecutor offered that the incident was not racially motivated but might have “sparked” outrage.
Conspicuous in European Commission (EC) president Jean-Claude Juncker’s State of the Union speech last week was a promise to outfit public spaces throughout the EU with wireless local internet networks. Open access WiFi (also referred to as W-LAN) are not uncommon in public buildings and parks, typically in major cities. President Juncker wants ubiquity in four years, evidence that the EC is in-tune and up-to-date.
Many private businesses, from health clubs to shops and restaurants to bars, also offer free WiFi access, a convenience customers are coming to expect. Anyway, costs involved are quite low, particularly when that intrusive step of log-ins and passwords is avoided. Oops!!
A day after President Juncker offered free WiFi to everybody in the EU, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) handed down its decision in a copyright infringement case brought by Sony Entertainment against a sound system shop owner. The big movie producer brought a lawsuit against Tobias McFadden in 2010, which inevitably arrived at the CJEU (Tobias McFadden v. Sony Music Entertainment GmbH C-484/14) via the Munich (Germany) Regional Court. Sony Entertainment claimed Mr. McFadden liable for prosecution because the WiFi in his shop facilitated the illegal downloading of “a musical work” by a customer; hence, their intellectual property rights were infringed, compensation claimed.
The CJEU’s opinion, which gets kicked back to the German court for a decision, offered that Mr. McFadden’s WiFi service is protected as “an information society service” under the Electronic Commerce Directive (E-commerce). Sony Entertainment loses; Mr. McFadden held harmless as a third party provider. (See more about copyright rules here)
Well, the CJEU also clarified that third party providers can be “ordered to end, or prevent, any infringement of copyright committed by (their) customers.” Log-ins and passwords that identify users can be required. “It is necessary to require users to reveal their identity to be prevented from acting anonymously before obtaining the required password.” On the other hand, third party providers, like Mr. McFadden, cannot infringe on network users freedom of information by monitoring.
“We don’t see it as a totally positive ruling because of the possibility the EU court gave today that we could be ordered to add a password protection,” said Mr. McFadden, quoted by Bloomberg (September 15). “That would go against the idea of free WiFI.” Mr. McFadden, it should be noted, is a Pirate Party member.
“We need to be connected,” said President Juncker in his address. “Our economy needs it. People need it.” The EC will be providing €120 million for initial infrastructure set-up. After that local governments will pay for maintenance and, presumably, the expanse of log-in and password systems.
|
