Industry Regulatory Organization to Outbrain and Gravity: Interest-Based Native Advertising Must Comply With Self-Regulatory Principles
Posted in Uncategorized
In two decisions issued last week, major native advertising players Gravity and Outbrain were found to have failed to comply with the online advertising industry’s self-regulatory principles for interest-based ads. The decisions, issued by the Better Business Bureau’s Online Interest-Based Advertising Accountability Program (OIBAAP), are the first to address whether native advertising targeted toward consumers’ interests must comply with the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising (the “Principles”). These decisions follow the OIBAAP’s Interest-Based Native Advertising Compliance Warning sent to advertisers last year.
Gravity and Outbrain both provide to online publishers what the IAB has dubbed “recommendation widgets,” which are a type of native advertising container that suggests third-party articles and other sponsored content tailored to a user’s specific interests. These recommendation widgets are typically placed adjacent to sites’ normal editorial content, but are boxed off and labeled with “Around the Web,” “You Might Also Like,” or similar.