Google has responded to a contagious YouTube advertising boycott which yesterday prompted a downgrade on Wall Street. Pivotal Research Group downgraded Alphabet shares from "Buy" to "Hold" based on its response to the boycott, which now includes more than 200 big brands, as well as public sector ad spending. Marks & Spencer …

Google has promised a review of its ad policy on YouTube after a backlash from blue-chip advertisers. It follows a series of reports by The Times demonstrating big brand ads running over content that breaches YouTube guidelines, such as jihadist videos and other inflammatory or racist material. French advertising giant Havas " …

Special Report Google's ad blacklists, intended to stop big brand advertisements running over YouTube terror videos, aren’t working. In 2014, Newsnight reported that the taxpayer was paying for ads to run alongside beheadings. Three years on, The Times notes that after promising advertisers their ads wouldn't run against certain content, …

Zeitgeist-hungry MPs at the UK Parliament will conduct an inquiry into “Fake News”. The Culture Media and Sport select committee will look at trying to define modern propaganda, its impact, and also asks whether “changes in the selling and placing of advertising encouraged the growth of fake news, for example by making it …

A group of toy and children's entertainment giants have been lightly fined for letting advertisers illegally track kids online. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and a group of state Attorneys General (AGs) have told Viacom, Mattel, Hasbro, and JumpStart to cough up some change for multiple violations of the Children's …

The digital ad biz is hoping that ad-blocking has reached a plateau in the UK, after its rolling survey of users failed to detect an increase. The IAB's July poll, conducted by YouGov, found that 21.2 per cent of the sample used prophylactics, down from 21.7 per cent in February. However the IAB notes that many users don't …

The makers of Adblock Plus (ABP) have already found a way to defeat Facebook's anti-ad-block tools. An updated filter list for ABP will disappear web ads on Facebook's desktop site – including banners the social network said it would force people to see even if they are using ad-blocking tools. Those ads are specially crafted …

The upfront market for broadcast and cable networks has taken an unexpected U-turn from last year’s dip, seeing an increase in advertising sales of $800m to $18.6bn in the most recent completion. According to research firm Media Dynamics, this 4.5 per cent increase in TV ad revenue is a blow to OTT video platforms on PCs and …

Google missed analysts' earnings estimates for the sixth quarter in a row on Thursday, despite the fact that its actual performance for the three months ending on March 31 was more than respectable. As usual, one has to wonder whether Wall Street isn't being just a bit over-optimistic about the online ad-slinger's prospects. …

Google continued to mint money in the second quarter of its fiscal 2014, with revenues booming compared to the year-ago period, yet its earnings still managed to disappoint eager Wall Street analysts who were expecting even greater returns. This quarter, the online ad-slinger posted revenues of $16.0bn, which soundly beat the …

Updated Google turned in another impressive earnings report on Thursday, with the giant ad-slinger's revenues reaching record highs both for the fourth quarter and for fiscal 2013. Total revenues for the three months ending on December 31 were $16.86bn, a 17 per cent hike from the year-ago period. And ignoring the impact of the …

Patent-holding company Vringo has won a legal victory against Google that could net it hundreds of millions of dollars per year in ongoing royalties from the Chocolate Factory's AdWords online advertising system. According to court documents [PDF] obtained by The Register, Judge Raymond Jackson of the US District Court of the …

An investigation into Google's online advertising practices by Canadian regulators has found that the Chocolate Factory served ads based on users' sensitive health-related information, in violation of the country's privacy laws. "Most Canadians consider health information to be extremely sensitive," Chantal Bernier, Canada's …

The privacy-enhancing Do Not Track standard is wobbling badly after barely surviving a no-confidence vote by the W3C consortium. Held among World Wide Web Committee (W3C) working group members, the vote against drafting a Do-Not-Track (DNT) standard was narrowly defeated by a majority of just five. W3C members working on the …

Google is toying with the idea of allowing big banner ads to run at the top of its search results pages - in a move that apparently breaks an eight-year-old promise. The Mountain View web goliath is, we're told, "running a very limited, US-only test" of the billboards. A Google spokesman confirmed to the AFP news agency today …

Twitter has poached a Google ad exec to be its head of retail, as it expands its business in preparation for its IPO. JJ Hirschle used to direct media and entertainment advertising for the Chocolate Factory, but will now sell ads to retail companies for Twitter, Bloomberg reported. As is typical of a company about to go …

A UK startup is trying to make a game out of solving CAPTCHAs*, the ubiquitous but sometimes irritating challenges designed to make sure that a human, rather than a 'bot, is registering for an online service. CAPTCHAs typically oblige website visitors to type out distorted words presented in images to prove that they are human …

Photo-sharing Facebook subsidiary Instagram has announced that it will soon start serving ads to its US users, including photos and videos. "We have big ideas for the future, and part of making them happen is building Instagram into a sustainable business," a company spokesperson wrote in a blog post on Thursday. Facebook …