Dstillery's Patent; AppNexus Raising Money

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

Patenting Prevention

Online ad tech firm Dstillery says it has received a patent for some of its fraud-prevention technology. The press release says that the patent covers detection of “non-intentional traffic (NIT) based on co-visitation information and flags websites as suspicious to enable spurious traffic to be filtered out and to prevent ads from being served to fraudulent website visits.” Read the release. And see the patent on the USPTO site. The multifaceted ad safety biz remains brisk and competitive. Mature startups like Integral Ad Science, DoubleVerify and Moat and larger companies like ComScore and Nielsen can attest.

AppNexus And Alibaba

The Wall Street Journal reports that online ad exchange and tech platform AppNexus is looking to raise $100 million at a rumored $1 billion valuation and may receive investment from e-commerce giant Alibaba. The $1 billion is more than double competitor Rubicon Project’s current, public market valuation. The WSJ: “Alibaba operates China’s biggest online marketplaces. Its main website, Taobao, generates much of its revenue through advertising. The people familiar with the matter said Alibaba is looking to gain advertising expertise from AppNexus, while AppNexus hopes Alibaba can help it expand beyond the U.S.” Read more (subscription). Twitter bought MoPub before going public. Perhaps there is a strategic echo here as Alibaba preps to go public: Get ready for more (programmatic) ads.

No Programmatic

Publisher ad exec Trevor Fellows of The Wall Street Journal says in an interview with eMarketer that his company will never implement programmatic video advertising. “If you’re a premium brand like ours, we can best sell our clients by having direct conversations and understanding their objectives really well. Having an intermediary do so via an exchange or a network makes no sense whatsoever for us.” Read it. Fellows appears to be addressing nonguaranteed vs. guaranteed or direct-programmatic opportunities.

Bidding For Video

More Alibaba!! The Chinese e-commerce company is evidently going after online video viewers, the company announced late last week. Ads will now appear on both Taobao and Tmall, Alibaba’s online shopping platforms. Additionally, Alibaba is placing ads on several other video sites, including Youku Tudou, known as “China’s YouTube.” The company has invested $1.2 billion into its video advertising strategy and says retailers can bid for placements as early as next month. Read more via The Next Web.

“Right To Be Forgotten” Process

In a play-by-play explainer, Search Engine Land breaks down the European Union’s new “Right To Be Forgotten” ruling established earlier this month. The removal form prompts individuals to submit a photo ID, and allows submitters to request links they want removed from Google’s search engine. URL removal will only happen in the EU, for EU versions of Google. Read more.

Delivery And Advertising

Google and Amazon have been in direct competition since the companies both announced same-day delivery services in Los Angeles earlier this month. As the companies extend operations to more cities, it remains to be seen which will dominate the e-commerce market. “The push to get consumers to buy from Google is really about advertising,” writes Bruce Kelly for Investopedia, “If Google can consumers to buy products after an online search, the company shows its advertisers how effective its ads really are.” With e-commerce amounting to $225 billion last year alone, the race is on and the stakes are high. Read more at Investopedia.

Selfie

Street Fight reports on a new native ad unit offered by a company called Broadstreet, “which provides ad services to news publisher.” The unit is called the “Selfie” and is described as a “short, self-generated messages that businesses and anybody else can place in the middle of an article to catch the eye of searching users.” Read how it works. Broadstreet is co-founded by former Right Media Exchange engineer Kenny Katzgrau.

Mohan On Video

In a canned interview on the DoubleClick Advertiser blog, Neal Mohan previews this Wednesday’s annual DoubleClick digital advertising summit (see more). Mohan says, “Video has been very much on my mind lately. Getting video right is something that is essential to our brand, agency and publisher partners. … Expect to hear more about what we have planned to help make that happen.” Read more.

Over And Out