Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
End Of An Epic Case
Epic lost its appeal case against Apple, which it had accused of anticompetitive practices.
However, despite the overall failure of its case, Epic did win one important and now lasting change to Apple’s App Store policies.
Apple’s “anti-steering provision” is now firmly illegal in the US. (In plain English, Apple had previously prohibited apps from linking to a website or even informing users that they could save money or contribute more directly to a developer by signing up over the web.)
This is more than a glancing blow – and evidence that if Apple had been more flexible with developers about Services revenue, it would likely have had a better business outcome, according to Ben Thompson at Stratechery.
In a different string of the multiverse, Apple could have kept its anti-steering rules for gaming apps based on the sound logic that those apps are prone to abuse – and because that’s where most of Apple’s Services revenue comes from. Being forced to pay Apple a 30% transaction fee hurts, but perhaps less so when you consider that virtual “skins” for in-game characters cost Epic almost nothing to create.
But e-readers, streaming media and app-based services like Instacart are dying under the weight of that 30% cut.
Top Of The VLOPs
The EU named 19 platforms that will face heightened scrutiny under the Digital Services Act.
The list of very large online platforms (VLOPs) and very large online search engines (VLOSEs) includes Alibaba, Amazon, Microsoft Bing, the Apple App Store, Booking.com, Google’s entire fleet of products, Facebook and Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, Wikipedia and German retail giant Zalando.
The “very large” designation comes with a baseline of 45 million monthly active EU users, which is clearly not tied to commercialization. (Looking at you, Wiki.) Bing and Google Search are the only two VLOSEs, though.
There’s a four-month grace period to comply, which means the platforms must disclose to regulators and users how they handle content recommendation, allow users to flag content and offer API access for researchers.
If they don’t comply, businesses could face penalties of up to 6% of annual revenue, TechCrunch reports. The European Commission and the newly created European Center for Algorithmic Transparency haven’t disclosed a timeline for potential enforcement.
But the next crop of VLOPs is already under consideration. The European Commission confirmed it’s looking at adult content sites such as Pornhub that meet the criteria, as well as Airbnb, Spotify and Telegram.
SEO Grave Robbers
One grisly corner of the programmatic world is online obituary sites that crawl Facebook and the web looking for announcements of recent deaths. These sites create individual pages with info pasted from Facebook memorial announcements and funeral home calendar sections. The obituary pages are plastered with ads and often include buttons to donate to a cause or send flowers, which generate affiliate commissions.
The ads aren’t fraudulent. This is valid traffic to viewable impressions. But the sites are a cynical ploy to take advantage of what invariably happens when people hear that someone has died. The first thing they do is Google their name plus the words “death” or “cause of death.”
The latest trend for programmatic death mills (god help us) is YouTube monetization, Marketing Brew reports.
With generative AI, it’s trivial to create realistic voice-overs or even on-screen monologues – and there’s a rather slippery funnel between YouTube and Google Search.
Google Search now prioritizes visual media in results feeds, not just bland text and text boxes, including product images for consumer searches. But for general searches, Google shows more video content, which in practice means that relevant YouTube videos appear atop the search feed, too.
It’s the circle of life … and death.
But Wait, There’s More!
MAP, the Sam’s Club retail media business, expands its ad tech partner program. [Ad Age]
The in-game ad industry is divided between intrinsic ads and immersive brand experiences. [Digiday]
The invite-only social app Bluesky, backed by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, sees a boost as Twitter falters. [Bloomberg]
You’re Hired!
Havas Media Group hires George Papandreopoulos as global managing director of measurement and Jamie Seltzer as global managing director of media experience analytics. [release]
Ad Net Zero brings on Rachel Schnorr as membership director. [release]
The Ad Council names DJ Perera as its new chief media officer. [release]
