Hasta La Gadget!

Facebook has announced that it’s teaming up with four of the world’s largest corporate data brokers to “enhance” the ad experience for users. Datalogix, Epsilon, Acxiom, and BlueKai obtain information gathered about users through online means (such as through cookies when users surf the web) as well as through offline means (such as through loyalty cards at supermarkets and product warranty cards). Through the new relationship with Facebook, companies will be able to display advertisements to Facebook users based on data that these data brokers have on individuals. More »

If you weren’t around Friday afternoon, you may have missed a recently published newspaper advertisement where AT&T bashes T-Mobile. The ad says, “The truth about T-Mobile’s network compared to AT&T. 2x more dropped calls, 2x more failed calls, 50% slower download speeds.”

It’s only been five days since that ad was published across a number of big-name newspapers and T-Mobile has just launched its own newspaper ad campaign where they fling the dirt right back at AT&T.

Three ads show a crumpled up piece of AT&T’s previous “truth about T-Mobile” ad in a corner, with T-Mobile’s messages displayed in the middle of the ad. Each ad takes some nice jabs at AT&T like their “What keeps AT&T up at night? Apparently Us,” and “Can you see the beads of sweat in this ad?” But our absolute favorite has to be their “If AT&T thought our network wasn’t great, why did they try to buy it?”

If these ads turn out to be the work of T-Mobile, then they may be one of the best responses to attack ads we’ve ever seen to date.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Concept Unicorn Windows Phone Concept By Alcatel Looks Interesting, American Variant Samsung Galaxy S4 Screenshots Surface, Points At New UI,

Free streaming is supported by ads. It’s just a feature of the form. You see it in Spotify, Pandora, Hulu, even YouTube. But you usually don’t get the chance to separate the two and control your ad-seeing power. HitBliss is looking to change that. More »

No one can doubt the stamina of Australia’s consumer watchdog, the ACCC. For six long years it hauled Google from hearing to hearing, court to court, in the belief that the internet giant should be held responsible for any “misleading” advertisements displayed as search results. But now the ACCC must accept defeat. Five judges of Australia’s High Court have unanimously overturned an earlier ruling from a lower court that would have required Google to set up a compliance program to vet ads. The upshot is that Mountain View can’t be blamed if one of those ads turns out to be deceptive. The specific example that triggered the lawsuit — that if someone had searched Google in 2006 for the words “Honda Australia,” they’d have been shown a sponsored link from one of Honda’s rivals — may already seem like an outdated objection. As a result of this final ruling, that’s exactly what it is.

Filed under: Internet, Google

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Source: Reuters

We know Facebook ads are tracking us, we just don’t always know which ones. But that process is about to get more transparent because Facebook is going to start labeling the ads you see based on past behavior. More »