The companies behind those sexually suggestive ads you see all over the internet say they're working on toning things down
- Ad-tech companies such as Taboola, Outbrain, and RevContent, which deliver so-called content recommendations, are working out how to deal with sexually suggestive ads.
- RevContent recently moved to ban certain images, while Taboola says it's about to kick off an effort to clean up its network, with help from its users.
- Some publishers don't always know what content is being recommended on their sites, while others take efforts to do some filtering.
- Still, it's hard for web publisher to turn down revenue given the challenges facing the media industry.
It has long been accepted in advertising that sex sells. But at a time when workplace mores and casual attitudes toward sexism are being reexamined, some publishers and advertisers are asking whether the internet needs to clean up its act.
Specifically, the use of sexually suggestive images delivered through content-recommendation companies such as Taboola and Outbrain have been flagged by some ad-industry insiders.
These ad modules are ubiquitous online, even if Taboola and Outbrain aren't household names. Almost every web user has probably encountered the collections of web links and accompanying photos near the bottom of articles - promising shocking photos of shark attacks, D-list celebrities, or dramatic weight loss.
They're not always racy, but publishers don't always have much if any control over what stories or ads get touted in these boxes. You can find content-recommendation modules on sites including CNN.com and Wired.com. Business Insider also runs them. Often they are labeled at "suggested stories" or "sponsored posts" or "stories you may be interested in."
They're there because the content-recommendation companies pay publications to carry these modules. Smaller sites can make a few hundred bucks from these deals, while large publishers can earn millions or more each year.
And at a time when Google and Facebook are slurping up the majority of digital ad spending, most web publishers are happy to pull in any extra revenue.
Often these modules push the envelope in terms of imagery and what sort of content may be available once you click. Now, the companies behind these recommendations are vowing to make changes, with RevContent saying it's banning certain images and Taboola about to kick off an effort to clean up its network with help from its users.
"Obviously the world is moving to consider more things to be racy and sexist," Yaron Galai, cofounder and CEO of Outbrain, said. "I'm not sure whether this is just good PR or what, but in the past many publishers were happy to get a check. Now, whether it's fake news, MeToo, all of them are coming together. It's not about a check; it's about a trustworthy on-brand experience."
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Galai at Outbrain said his company has always pushed for strict content guidelines. Here are Outbrain's rules on "adult" content.
"We've been at the forefront on this," he told Business Insider. "Our currency is user trust. Finally, the market is coming around on this. It's something we've been really focused on."
Galai said that Outbrain has over 5 million links in its system in a given month. And that's after 50% get rejected upfront for violating the company's standards.
But it's very tough to police what ads run where. "We're not 100% perfect, but squash it as soon as we identify [a link that breaks our rules.]"
Facebook isn't immune
Such sexually suggestive ads aren't just on the open web. They pop up on Facebook too.
After being alerted by Business Insider about several racy links, Facebook took the ads in question down. "These ads violate our ads policies under our policy for adult content and have been removed," a Facebook spokeswoman said.
Some see an industry that is pushing questionable content that is out of step with the #MeToo era. Other see these companies looking to exploit that movement.
Recently, the Taboola-competitor RevContent issued a news release stating a new policy that will "eliminate use of all sexually objectifying and explicit content."
The company said it was basing its standards on guidelines provided by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
Meanwhile, Taboola's founder and CEO, Adam Singolda, told Business Insider that since early 2017 the company has reviewed all its paid content manually and automatically and that a million different URLs are screened each month.
Initially, that 30-person group has focused on cracking down on deceptive ads and fake news. More recently it's banned cryptocurrency ads. And starting in the second quarter of this year, Taboola is planning to block out what it deems "racy" ads. It's adding more than a dozen new members to its review team.
Of course that's complicated, because one person's definition of too sexy for your computer can be very different from another's. Standards on sexually charged content vary widely, particularly across the globe, Singolda said.
Outbrain's Galai concurred. He has teams in Israel, India, and the US scanning paid links, and they don't always agree. "It's more of a nuanced thing," he said.
That's true in the US too. "On Sports Illustrated, for example, bikinis may be OK. But on Time.com maybe not."
For its cleanup efforts, Taboola is asking for the community's help. People can click on a tab on Taboola ads and rate them for being "deceptive" and racy using a module called Taboola Choice. It has already removed 100,000 sites from its customer base, which makes a small percentage of its overall advertiser base, Singolda said.
Some mainstream publishers that use celebrity images will be categorized by Taboola as "gossip," while other, less legitimate news publications will be blocked for images that cross the line.
"It's going to cost us millions of dollars," Singolda said. But it's worth it, he says. Taboola is bringing in $1 billion a year, and the loss of a few million dollars won't bury the company.
"We need the open web to thrive, so that all publishers can make money," he said.
Of course money is the main reason that most publishers feature content-recommendation tools. Yet publishers only know so much about what content-recommendation ads run on their site at a given moment.
- Sometimes Taboola or Outbrain recommends users check out more of that publication's own content.
- Sometimes people see content from other publications or from mainstream advertisers.
- And then sometimes people see sensational headlines and images from no-name publications looking for clicks.
According to a New York Magazine spokeswoman, Taboola does offer the company "a measure of control in terms of the content that's surfaced on our site." That includes the option to block specific ads or pieces of content if the publication receives complaints. The New York Daily News did not respond to requests for comment.
But other publishers say they have less awareness.
"Since the ads a user sees are tailored to their individual browsing habits, we simply can't see everything that runs on our site," said Ben Umanov, of Blast Beat Network which represents publications like the music-centric MetalSucks.net. "If a user brings a complaint to us about a particular ad, we review it and ask the network to remove it from our queue if we find it to be objectionable."
A Men's Fitness spokesperson added: "American Media Inc. has great value and appreciation for our readers and visitors. While we do not directly manage the ad placements with many of our programmatic advertising partners, we will continue to work closely with them to ensure the best environment possible for all of our audiences."