Posted by Media companies have been waging a battle for online ad dollars ever since the start of online publishing. For traditional publishers, online advertising revenues have gradually been rising over the past decade as print advertising declined. And although there has been much progress for publishers in the online arena, most still have far to go before they reach the level of online ad revenue they need to make up for the loss in print revenues.
According to Tony Silber’s FOLIO: article on the American Magazine Media Conference in New York this February, “The overwhelming narrative for the magazine industry is that print is declining while growth in other areas isn’t robust enough to make up the loss…” [see also the charts here on print vs. online publishing spend].
Use of Adblockers Conpires Against Advertising Reach
But over the past few years, a new threat has emerged as online publishers try to forge a way around the adblockers, whose use by consumers has been skyrocketing. According to a recent report by PageFair, which measures the extent of adblocking and its cost to online publishers, “total lost revenue from adblocking grew from $5.8 to $10.7 billion between 2014 and 2015 in the U.S.”
The most unfortunate part of the story for online publishers is that it is the most highly valued part of their demographic that appears to be using the adblockers. PageFair’s survey finds that peak usage is occurring among 18 – 29 year old men – an audience that has been notoriously hard to reach, and one that is considered by many to be the most lucrative market for advertisers (or at least the most desirable).
As if this weren’t bad enough, an additional problem has surfaced to put a possible wedge between the online publishers and their growing advertising revenues…malvertising!
Malvertising Appears on Major News Websites this Weekend
It was reported this morning in Computerworld that malicious online ads – commonly known as “malvertising” – were placed through several of the major online advertising networks, appearing over the weekend on such news sites as The New York Times, BBC, Newsweek and MSN.
According to security firm Malwarebytes, the ads were connected with servers hosting the Angler Exploit Kit, making it possible for an ad to infect viewers’ computers with malware or file-encrypting ransomware. It is thought that tens of thousands of computers may have been exposed.
Joseph Segura, senior security researcher at Malwarebytes is quoted as saying, “These are the top ad networks in the world. For some reason they were all affected. It was shocking, to be honest.”
Joseph Chen’s blog on Trend Micro notes that the Angler Exploit Kit was reportedly just updated “to exploit additional vulnerabilities. This could imply that its creators are employing a more aggressive strategy to continue to stay ahead of its competitors.” In other words: watch out!
What recourse do publishers have?
Only time will tell how the online advertising drama will play out. There are ways to avoid the adblocking – for example by relying on the “walled gardens” provided by Facebook, LinkedIn, SnapChat, and others. But the existence of a walled garden does not necessarily mean that malvertising will not find its way in. It also does not preclude the introduction of new adblocking capabilities and demands by consumers who want more control over their viewing experience within these communities.
It would seem the most logical approach to keeping malvertising out of circulation would be to rely on the security of the ad networks and platforms themselves. Of course, this will be no small feat. According to Malwarebytes, the following networks were affected by the Angler Exploit Kit this week: Google, AppNexus, AOL and Rubicon.
[Originally posted on LinkedIn by Kristina Joukhadar, March 16, 2016]
All of the Above 