Can’t Spell ‘Bad’ Without ‘Ad’
The ad industry has a long history of costly blunders – some absurd, some sinister – that have run into the millions.
Remember the night of the yellow square? Or, more troublingly, a recent rash of Google ad account takeovers?
But this one takes the cake.
If you hadn’t heard, Binance was totally pwned in a $6 billion crypto heist last week, suspected to be a North Korean operation. Well, Binance has now published what amounts to a preliminary autopsy report of the incident.
The heist began when a Binance Wallet DevOps team member accidentally downloaded a malicious copy of Homebrew – a popular open-source tool – from a mirror site promoted in a search ad. The malware was spotted, but not before the hackers had obtained the real identities of Wallet DevOps team members.
Using those identities, the North Korean hacking unit spent months targeting Binance’s wallet team with covert schemes. One involved a prolonged fake job interview that lured a Binance DevOps engineer into downloading an “assignment” onto their work device.
After taking control of the Binance DevOps engineer’s laptop, the hacker used an unnamed internal AI tool to log in to the devices of other engineers. Access to multiple credentials allowed the heist to go through.
A $6 billion reminder that one ad click can come at a staggering cost.
Missing The Mark
Publishers are contending with AI search eating into their traffic. But at The New York Times, the problem for investors wasn’t shrinking ad revenue; it was that growth isn’t happening fast enough for their liking.
The company reported on Wednesday that its Q3 digital ad revenue grew 12% to $109.9 million. Good stuff. But it slightly missed its own projection of growth in the “mid to high teens.”
Most publishers would kill for 12% growth right now. But it was the slowest digital ad growth rate the Times has posted since Q4 2024, when it grew by 9.5%.
Multiple investors pressed Times CEO Meredith Kopit Levien on the ad revenue miss. But, although she acknowledged in her opening remarks that the Times “isn’t immune” to “Big Tech companies whose moves continue to result in less traffic to publishers,” she didn’t directly answer questions about whether AI search contributed to the revenue shortfall. Instead, she kept reiterating that it’s hard to predict ad revenue quarter to quarter.
The NYT’s reluctance to directly address AI search contrasts with publishers like People Inc. and platforms like Reddit, which have been openly blasting Google for obliterating their search traffic.
Meanwhile, News Corp also reported earnings on Wednesday. The company’s Dow Jones division – which includes The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch and more – also grew digital ad revenue by 12% last quarter. No investors pooh-pooh’d News Corp’s growth, though. One even offered his congratulations.
Guess that’s a lesson for publishers: These days, predicting your ad revenue may just be a liability.
Tune In, Opt Out
Does opting out of being tracked by your smart TV actually work? According to new research from Northeastern University, not always, The Verge reports.
As part of the study, researchers analyzed network traffic from 12 different TV devices running eight operating systems, which included big players like LG, Amazon Fire, Google TV, Samsung, Roku, Vizio and VIDAA OS. They then checked which TVs had automatic content recognition (ACR) enabled by default and whether changing the sharing settings stopped those TVs from sending data.
Most TVs tracked viewing on their own built-in streaming services, but not on Netflix or YouTube. More than half also tracked content coming in through HDMI, such as from a cable box or game console. Opting out stopped the data flow on most devices – but Samsung and Roku TVs kept sending data from their own streaming services, while Walmart-owned Vizio TVs continued transmitting as before.
ACR is now table stakes for the smart TV industry, in part because it helps advertisers measure ad reach and frequency. But it’s also drawing more scrutiny – and opprobrium – from viewers who are only now realizing just how much of their viewing gets tracked.
But Wait! There’s More!
The bots aren’t taking over just yet. Uber says it only fulfilled four rides and 500 food orders from third-party AI agents last quarter out of 320 million transactions. [The Verge]
Crypto PACs spent $170 million on the midterms and have very little to show for it. [Fortune]
The same goes for the $440 million that Elon Musk personally poured into election ads across the country. [WSJ]
Another big loser in the midterms: AI data centers. All thirteen municipalities that had proposals on the ballot to restrict data center construction appear to have passed those proposals. [Forbes] Also, the most vocally anti-data center Senate candidates won their races. [Politico]
Meanwhile, Super PACs that aimed to promote AI-friendly politicians barely mentioned AI in their ads, preferring to highlight other issues instead. [Bellingcat]
Titan OS raised $46 million in seed funding, much of which could go toward expanding its ad business on smart TVs. [TechCrunch]
Understanding AI’s carbon impact and how to make more sustainable choices when using generative AI. [report]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
