Let’s start with a real fact: Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is running for re-election in Texas.  Like most State Attorney Generals, they serve at the whim of the people, and in that type of service they often need to make headlines. While I would not want to doubt the intentions of the Chief Legal Officer of the State of Texas, we all need to be aware of the political truths. Taking on Google will make headlines. Claiming things like anti-trust against Google will even make headlines especially when the media loves writing stuff about Google’s possible (well, not really) downfall. Very few of these media outlets have actually looked into the truth of these allegations beyond the headlines. Google’s Anti-Trust investigation… well, bullshit.

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A few weeks ago I wrote about “TopTVBytes”,  a video site that kept on appearing on pops while I was browsing. A company spokesman admits a history of being involved (accidently or unbeknownst to them)  with adware in the past, but having claimed to hire Ben Edelman, known adware expert to stop this practice. When I spoke to video advertising networks about this specific company, I heard a wide variety of answers. The CEO of BrightRoll told me point blank that the company was complete junk and a bad-player and that everyone in the industry knew about their scheme. On the other hand, another network said there was no problems and claimed the site was a valuable partner. Based on this, I tried to right what I felt was a balanced blog post and research about the company presenting both sides at that time. However, after extensive research, I can only come to the conclusion now that one of the top video advertising site sources is using unacceptable means to show videos and defrauding their advertisers.

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I’ve sort of had a love-hate relationship with AzoogleAds all these years. I’ve been friends with the founders Joe & Alex for over a decade and have kept in touch with them (although mainly on AIM now). They were the first sponsors of my first party in 2000something, and had always been great friends, providing me with advice and often a great tip for my various publications. At the same time, I’ve always had issues with almost every company in the industry, and AzoogleAds history has included everything from association with adware to crappy download products being pimped. Still, when I found out that they were shutting down "AzoogleAds", I almost shed a tear reminiscing about the past, my history with the company and their enormous influence. Read More.

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Updated on Wednesday, September 1, 2010 at 6:06AM by Pace Lattin

Updated on Wednesday, September 1, 2010 at 7:32AM by Pace Lattin

If you’ve been paying attention at all, you would know that there is a rise in fake agencies trying to buy media. Their scam is usually simple: they buy media, insert viruses and other types of questionable things into the mix, and when they are caught, never pay for the media. Some people like Torq Cisek, use pseudonyms to buy advertising and insert code of other ads into the mix, cheating the advertiser. Either way, these scams are on the rise. I’ve found thanks to an alert from a reader, another scam ring located in China, preying on those who might not be taking the time to really dig in deep.

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The Libertarian Party is pissed that according to Facebook, "We do not allow ads for marijuana or political ads for the promotion of marijuana." Executive Director and my friend Wes Benedict commented, "Whether or not the folks at Facebook like marijuana, we think they should end their ridiculous censorship of our ad, which expresses the Libertarian position on a political issue of interest to many people."

Recently, the LP learned that Facebook revoked approval of similar ads from other groups, including Just Say Now and the District of Columbia Patients' Cooperative, claiming that their ads violated Facebook's ban on images of "smoking products." The LP notes that Facebook's ad guidelines prohibit "advertisements promoting tobacco products," but that the Libertarian ad does not promote the product itself, and that it is not a tobacco product.

Kyle Hartz, the LP's Development & New Media Assistant, said, "Our ad is targeted to people who have indicated that they are interested in the issue of marijuana legalization. It's bizarre that Facebook won't allow us to advertise to the very people who support what we are advocating."

Let's be honest here too. Facebook wouldn't exist if it wasn't for all those college students smoking pot and having nothing else to do. How hypocritical.

Updated on Wednesday, August 25, 2010 at 6:21AM by Pace Lattin

Updated on Wednesday, August 25, 2010 at 3:29PM by Pace Lattin

Updated on Thursday, September 9, 2010 at 3:52PM by Pace Lattin

Updated on Thursday, September 9, 2010 at 4:01PM by Pace Lattin

Updated on Thursday, September 9, 2010 at 4:52PM by Pace Lattin

Last year I tracked down a known scammer and convicted felon running a huge scam on the industry, where he was loading using a background script tons of hidden advertisements in order to inflate and defraud advertisers. In response, the crook, one Torq Cisek decided to post messages all over the internet claiming to be from me, and worse I started getting phone calls with death threats to my Las Vegas residence, claiming that if I didn’t stop making these type of posts, that I would suffer at the hands of unknown entities. Unfortunately for Mr. Cisek, despite his attacks on my character and “friends” calling me, I haven’t gone anywhere and have caught him doing the same thing again. Despite our industry’s best measures, Mr. Cisek is back under the name Andrew Larsen, attempting to do business in our industry.

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Every so often I go on the lookout for what I believe to be obvious scams in the industry.  This time I decided to examine a specific pop-up that I had been seeing. A large video website called “TopTVBytes” has been popping up and under from a variety of websites that I was visiting with video advertising being run automatically. The purpose of these pops seemed obvious to me at the time – they were trying to drive traffic to their website, because in theory the value of the pre-roll and the additional advertisements on the page would pay more than the cost of the pop. I thought this was interesting and pretty straight forward, but after talking to some players in the industry, it seemed that there was something else going on beyond TopTVBytes, and advertisers were the ones paying for it.

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