7 ms·

> fake video preroll ad placements Can you explain this further? Who is getting defrauded here?

jdangu 9y ago
Everyone feels the pain: Publisher gets paid on a $1 CPM basis while Cedato gets paid $5-10 CPM and pockets the difference. Advertiser thinks they paid for quality video content preroll but it's actually a tiny rectangle normally used for "display" ads. Audience is infuriated. Think about what happens on a 4G mobile plan now that VPAID has been fully migrated from Flash to JS...
- erikb 9y ago
  And you can't even install ad blockers on the phone.
  - shakna 9y ago
    Firefox Mobile, uBlock Origin. Adblockers are here.
    - devcpp 9y ago
      Or root and AdAway if you're looking to block them in other apps as well.
    - _pmf_ 9y ago
      Or Brave on Android; it's basically indistinguishable from Chrome (or whatever the Android standard browser currently is called).
      - bnolsen 9y ago
        Just tried this. Other than having to redo all my forums passwords again this browser looks to be a winner. On my phone firefox ran very slowly and hogged too many resources.
        boyce 9y ago
        Try nightly - 57 feels like it has big performance gains on my ageing 1+
  - peteretep 9y ago
    My iPhone has them just fine, and Android being less locked down makes me think it probably does too
    - new299 9y ago
      It's possible it's more likely on Android. However I don't think it's a given that it will be prompted by Google, or will continue to be the case. Google is an advertising company. Android, does not make money through licensing. It makes money by being a vehicle for advertising. Apple on the other hand, make money through selling products. Advertising (on the web) shouldn't make much difference to them, and helps put pressure on the competing platform as well as Adblocking being a potentially valuable feature to help sell their products.
    - erikb 9y ago
      How? I can't install plugins into my Chrome on iPhone 6s. And you can't switch the default browser so it only helps in 30 % of the cases (when you are not inside Facebook/Twitter/etc and when you are not clicking a link that opens the default browser)
  - kbart 9y ago
    "And you can't even install ad blockers on the phone." Nonsense. I've been using Firefox + uBlock Origin on Android for years. There are even browsers/add-ons that can disable JavaScript completely, but I find it too much of a hassle.
    - erikb 9y ago
      my mistake, can't edit my comment now. *iphone I mean
      - pmontra 9y ago
        "How to block ads on iPhone and iPad" http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/iosapps/how-block-ads-on-iphone-ipad-3627089/ http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/iosapps/how-block-ads-on-ip...
      - briandear 9y ago
        Crystal for iOS as one example. Safari provides support for adblockers in both mobile and desktop.
  - PeachPlum 9y ago
    But you can install Brendan Eich's ad-blocking Brave browser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)
    - erikb 9y ago
      I'll try this one on all my phones. Thanks.
  - winterlight 9y ago
    My browsing experience on a mobile phone stepped up greatly since I started using Firefox Focus. You don't even need to mess around with plugins because ad blocking is already a built-in core feature.
  - ljcn 9y ago
    As others have said, now is actually a really rich time for ad/tracker-blocking browsers: * Brave * Firefox Focus * Ghostery to name but three.
- ep103 9y ago
  The only person who cares about that, though, is the audience. Advertisers as a group don't really care that much. Right now, Online Ad Spend is growing industry wide, so fraud like this is just chalked up as an efficiency loss, on growing market. No one else in the chain cares.
  - ec109685 9y ago
    The publisher cares because they delivered a worse experience for user for no $
x0x0 9y ago
Advertisers. Preroll ads are valuable because people are mostly paying attention. eg you went to youtube to watch X, and they show you 15 seconds of swiffer beforehand. The problem is there aren't enough preroll ad slots available to satisfy demand. Therefore, companies invent them. One thing I know people are doing is this: film a video every day. Talk about who cares. It could be upcoming movies; the tv show with dragons; whatever. Buy an ad slot. Play your video. Put a preroll or interstitial ad in your video. Tada! You just turned dirt cheap ad inventory into expensive video ad inventory. Of course, if the viewer leaves the page too fast, you lose the money you spent. So this is an arbitrage play. The problem with manufacturing video ad inventory is that almost all the manufactured stuff is either (1) off onto the side, or (2) not gating something that a viewer wants to see. And hence, they don't receive attention. Make sense? Legit video advertisers and publishers are all unhappy about this, because this shitty faked inventory drops the value of the real thing, ie preroll ads in main content that the user wishes to see. Oh, and publishers get very unhappy because (1) many of them are ok with picture ads but not at all okay with autoplay video ads; (2) if they're going to put autoplay videos on their page and take the hit for (rationally) pissed off users, the pub wants to pocket that $5-$25cpm rather than get paid for still picture ads and let some arbitrager steal the difference.
- eveningcoffee 9y ago
  >Preroll ads are valuable because people are mostly paying attention. eg you went to youtube to watch X, and they show you 15 seconds of swiffer beforehand. Personal anecdote time. Preroll ads are the main force for me behind installing the adblocker. I just can not stand something that manipulates my flow. I call it televication of the Internet. It is unbearable. If for some reason I am not able to block them then I just do not watch them and I am not listening to them (I look elsewhere, say a lalala mantra in your mind). I also taught my family to do so. So advertisers actually loose in the long term.
  - stordoff 9y ago
    > Preroll ads are the main force for me behind installing the adblocker They are certainly one of the most annoying classes of ads, which is why I was exceptionally annoyed when Amazon put one before a Prime video I was watching a few days ago. Granted it was for an Amazon product, but any sort of ad in a paid service is _extremely_ annoying.

Everyone feels the pain: Publisher gets paid on a $1 CPM basis while Cedato gets paid $5-10 CPM and pockets the difference. Advertiser thinks they paid for quality video content preroll but it's actually a tiny rectangle normally used for "display" ads. Audience is infuriated. Think about what happens on a 4G mobile plan now that VPAID has been fully migrated from Flash to JS...

erikb 9y ago
And you can't even install ad blockers on the phone.
- shakna 9y ago
  Firefox Mobile, uBlock Origin. Adblockers are here.
  - devcpp 9y ago
    Or root and AdAway if you're looking to block them in other apps as well.
  - _pmf_ 9y ago
    Or Brave on Android; it's basically indistinguishable from Chrome (or whatever the Android standard browser currently is called).
    - bnolsen 9y ago
      Just tried this. Other than having to redo all my forums passwords again this browser looks to be a winner. On my phone firefox ran very slowly and hogged too many resources.
      - boyce 9y ago
        Try nightly - 57 feels like it has big performance gains on my ageing 1+
- peteretep 9y ago
  My iPhone has them just fine, and Android being less locked down makes me think it probably does too
  - new299 9y ago
    It's possible it's more likely on Android. However I don't think it's a given that it will be prompted by Google, or will continue to be the case. Google is an advertising company. Android, does not make money through licensing. It makes money by being a vehicle for advertising. Apple on the other hand, make money through selling products. Advertising (on the web) shouldn't make much difference to them, and helps put pressure on the competing platform as well as Adblocking being a potentially valuable feature to help sell their products.
  - erikb 9y ago
    How? I can't install plugins into my Chrome on iPhone 6s. And you can't switch the default browser so it only helps in 30 % of the cases (when you are not inside Facebook/Twitter/etc and when you are not clicking a link that opens the default browser)
- kbart 9y ago
  "And you can't even install ad blockers on the phone." Nonsense. I've been using Firefox + uBlock Origin on Android for years. There are even browsers/add-ons that can disable JavaScript completely, but I find it too much of a hassle.
  - erikb 9y ago
    my mistake, can't edit my comment now. *iphone I mean
    - pmontra 9y ago
      "How to block ads on iPhone and iPad" http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/iosapps/how-block-ads-on-iphone-ipad-3627089/ http://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/iosapps/how-block-ads-on-ip...
    - briandear 9y ago
      Crystal for iOS as one example. Safari provides support for adblockers in both mobile and desktop.
- PeachPlum 9y ago
  But you can install Brendan Eich's ad-blocking Brave browser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_(web_browser)
  - erikb 9y ago
    I'll try this one on all my phones. Thanks.
- winterlight 9y ago
  My browsing experience on a mobile phone stepped up greatly since I started using Firefox Focus. You don't even need to mess around with plugins because ad blocking is already a built-in core feature.
- ljcn 9y ago
  As others have said, now is actually a really rich time for ad/tracker-blocking browsers: * Brave * Firefox Focus * Ghostery to name but three.
ep103 9y ago
The only person who cares about that, though, is the audience. Advertisers as a group don't really care that much. Right now, Online Ad Spend is growing industry wide, so fraud like this is just chalked up as an efficiency loss, on growing market. No one else in the chain cares.
- ec109685 9y ago
  The publisher cares because they delivered a worse experience for user for no $

x0x0 9y ago

Advertisers. Preroll ads are valuable because people are mostly paying attention. eg you went to youtube to watch X, and they show you 15 seconds of swiffer beforehand. The problem is there aren't enough preroll ad slots available to satisfy demand. Therefore, companies invent them. One thing I know people are doing is this: film a video every day. Talk about who cares. It could be upcoming movies; the tv show with dragons; whatever. Buy an ad slot. Play your video. Put a preroll or interstitial ad in your video. Tada! You just turned dirt cheap ad inventory into expensive video ad inventory. Of course, if the viewer leaves the page too fast, you lose the money you spent. So this is an arbitrage play. The problem with manufacturing video ad inventory is that almost all the manufactured stuff is either (1) off onto the side, or (2) not gating something that a viewer wants to see. And hence, they don't receive attention. Make sense? Legit video advertisers and publishers are all unhappy about this, because this shitty faked inventory drops the value of the real thing, ie preroll ads in main content that the user wishes to see. Oh, and publishers get very unhappy because (1) many of them are ok with picture ads but not at all okay with autoplay video ads; (2) if they're going to put autoplay videos on their page and take the hit for (rationally) pissed off users, the pub wants to pocket that $5-$25cpm rather than get paid for still picture ads and let some arbitrager steal the difference.

eveningcoffee 9y ago
>Preroll ads are valuable because people are mostly paying attention. eg you went to youtube to watch X, and they show you 15 seconds of swiffer beforehand. Personal anecdote time. Preroll ads are the main force for me behind installing the adblocker. I just can not stand something that manipulates my flow. I call it televication of the Internet. It is unbearable. If for some reason I am not able to block them then I just do not watch them and I am not listening to them (I look elsewhere, say a lalala mantra in your mind). I also taught my family to do so. So advertisers actually loose in the long term.
- stordoff 9y ago
  > Preroll ads are the main force for me behind installing the adblocker They are certainly one of the most annoying classes of ads, which is why I was exceptionally annoyed when Amazon put one before a Prime video I was watching a few days ago. Granted it was for an Amazon product, but any sort of ad in a paid service is _extremely_ annoying.