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A campaign group claims Facebook lets users target ads at children based on interests such as smoking, drinking alcohol and gambling. Facebook says it has adequate measures to find and block such ads both before and after publication. The claims ... come from Reset Australia, which says it ran an experiment posing as the fictional "Ozzie News Network." It set up an advertising account on Facebook to see what options were available. In theory, Facebook has an outright ban on advertising adult topics such as alcohol to under 18s. Reset Australia says this failed in two ways: it was able to target ... (view more)

Moves by Apple to restrict ad tracking have prompted a war of words with Facebook and a legal battle with advertisers. They both object to changes that require express permission for some tracking. The arguments are over the "identifier for ... advertisers" or IDFA. That's a specific code for each iPhone or iPad which can be used by advertisers to track activity by device users. Until now its been possible to use IDFA with express user consent and then combine it with other data to build up a picture of the individual for targeted advertising. The iOS 14.5 update to the iPhone and iPad operating ... (view more)

A feature used in several ad blocker tools could be used to "booby trap" websites according to a security researchers. It appears to be a low but credible risk. The problem is all to do with the way many ad blockers work. In simple terms, they ... maintain a blacklist of URLs that host ads and other unwanted material. Whenever a website tries to load an ad from an URL on the list, it's blocked from doing so. Since last summer some ad blockers, including Adblock Plus, added support for a feature called "$rewrite." With this feature, the ad blocker won't just block the unwanted URL from ... (view more)

Apps aimed at very young children are a "wild west" of dubious advertising according to the author of a new study. Jenny Radesky of the University of Michigan's CS Mott Children's Hospital said the advertising was often manipulative. The researchers ... looked at 135 Android apps played by children, including the 96 most downloaded from the Google Play store in the "5 And Under" category. Their headline finding was that 95 percent contained at least one form of advertising. That's arguably a little misleading as this includes 42 percent of the apps featuring a commercial character such as one ... (view more)

YouTube has removed hundred of videos which included promotions for essay-writing services. The company says it breaches its rules but the video presenters say they weren't given enough warning. The case doesn't involve ads placed via YouTube itself ... that are shown to viewers before popular videos, or display ads shown on the site. Instead the 'ads' were part of the videos themselves. 700 Million Views For Promotions A BBC investigation found that more than 250 people who produce popular YouTube videos had broken off in the middle of a clip to promote EduBirdie, a Ukraine-based service which ... (view more)

Some of the web's most popular sites, including Yahoo, AOL, and dating portal Match.com, were recently hit by a wave of malicious advertisements linked to ransomware . The attack was carried out using vulnerabilities in web browsers plugins , and if ... successful, automatically (and silently) installed file-encrypting software CryptoWall on victim's PCs. According to reports, the malicious advertising -- or 'malvertising', as it's being called -- appeared on 22 different websites, including realestate.aol.com, and several Yahoo pages, including Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports. Three Million ... (view more)

Facebook has altered its privacy policy and it's unlikely the change will be popular with the social network's 1+ billion members. In the next few weeks, Facebook will begin tracking user activity outside of it's own web site, so that it can ... generate 'more appropriate' advertisements tailored towards its members. In the past, Facebook kept close tabs on what its users posted to their profiles in an effort to bring forth more relevant advertisements. But the social network only monitored user activity on the Facebook website itself, including the pages they liked and the links they clicked ... (view more)

Facebook is facing a serious backlash over a new feature that allows it to listen in on its smartphone users. When activated, the feature uses the device's microphone to detect a user's activity and automatically updates their "status" accordingly. ... For example, if a user is listening to a new U2 album on their stereo in the background, Facebook will use a smartphone's microphone to update a user's status to "Listening to U2". It can also detect movies and television shows and update a user's status to read "Watching Iron Man" or "Watching ... (view more)

Microsoft is targeting school pupils with a special ad-free version of the Bing search engine . It says testing shows the software improves classroom performance, though critics suggest Microsoft's motives are far from charitable. The special ... edition of the search engine is called Bing in the Classroom. Microsoft initially tested it in five school districts last year and is now making it available nationwide. It will be available to all K-12 schools (meaning primary and secondary education) in the United States. According to Microsoft estimates, students using school computers see a total ... (view more)