Advertising

Facebook's advertising metrics have again been called into question, after Pivotal Research Group senior analyst Brian Wieser pointed out a large discrepancy between US census data and the potential reach that the social network promises advertisers. Wieser issued a note pointing out that Facebook's Adverts Manager tool promises a potential reach of 41 million 18-24 year-olds in the US, while recent census data said there only 31 million people living in the U.S. within that age range. For 25-34 year-olds, Facebook claims a potential reach of 60 million, versus the 45 million people counted in the census in 2016. Fortune's own experiments with the Adverts Manager backed up the figures Wieser quoted.

What's more, the problem does not seem to be confined to the U.S. For advertisers trying to target Facebook users in the U.K., the company promises it could potentially reach 5.8 million 20-24 year-olds, 6.4 million 25-29 year-olds, and 5.2 million 30-34 year olds. When the last census was conducted in 2011, the U.K. only had 4.3 million 20-24 year-olds, 4.3 million 25-29 year-olds, and 4.1 million 30-34 year olds.

A new Verizon rewards program, Verizon Up, provides credits that wireless subscribers can use for concert tickets, movie premieres and phone upgrades. But it comes with a catch: Customers must give the carrier access to their web-browsing history, app usage and location data, which Verizon says it uses to personalize the rewards and deliver targeted advertising as its customers browse the web.

The trade-off is part of Verizon’s effort to build a digital advertising business to compete with web giants Facebook and Alphabet’s Google, which often already possess much of the same customer information. Even though Congress earlier this year dismantled tough privacy regulations on telecommunications providers, Verizon still wants customers to opt-in to its most comprehensive advertising program, called Verizon Selects. Data collected under the program is shared with Oath, the digital-media unit Verizon created when it bought AOL and Yahoo.

Lenovo Inc., one of the world’s largest computer manufacturers, has agreed to settle charges by the Federal Trade Commission and 32 State Attorneys General that the company harmed consumers by pre-loading software on some laptops that compromised security protections in order to deliver ads to consumers. In its complaint, the FTC charged that beginning in August 2014 Lenovo began selling consumer laptops in the United States that came with a preinstalled “man-in-the-middle” software program called VisualDiscovery that interfered with how a user’s browser interacted with websites and created serious security vulnerabilities.

As part of the settlement with the FTC, Lenovo is prohibited from misrepresenting any features of software preloaded on laptops that will inject advertising into consumers’ Internet browsing sessions or transmit sensitive consumer information to third parties. The company must also get consumers’ affirmative consent before pre-installing this type of software. In addition, the company is required for 20 years to implement a comprehensive software security program for most consumer software preloaded on its laptops. The security program will also be subject to third-party audits.

Outside groups, such as super PACs and their more secretive brethren politically active nonprofits, spent more money during the first eight months of the 2018 election cycle than over the same period in any previous cycle. Outside groups have spent nearly $48 million as of August 24 – or more than double the $20.7 million the groups spent at this point during the 2016 presidential elections and the $18 million doled out at this point in 2014, the last midterm cycle.

The record $48 million should be considered the minimum total, however, given the FEC doesn’t require groups to disclose spending on ads discussing issues and those mentioning candidates for office outside of the agency’s reporting windows (30 days before a primary election; 60 days before a general election). Some of the usual suspects are fueling the record spending. Super PACs, which can raise and spend unlimited contributions from wealthy donors, contributed $22.3 million – nearly doubling the $11.8 million they had spent at this point in 2014. Similarly, the $7.4 million spent by politically active nonprofits is nearly four times the roughly $2 million spent by those groups at this point in 2014.

The Campaign Legal Center and Issue One, two political “watchdog” organizations, filed Federal Communications Commission complaints against two Georgia TV stations, alleging violations of the rules that govern the documents that need to be placed into a station’s public inspection file regarding political “issue advertising".

FCC rules require that stations place into their public files information concerning any advertising dealing with controversial issues of public importance including the list of the sponsoring organization’s chief executive officers or directors. Section 315 of the Communications Act requires that, when those issues are “matters of national importance,” the station must put into their public file additional information similar to the information that they include in their file for candidate ads, including the specifics of the schedule for the ads including price information and an identification of the issue to which the ad is directed. The complaints allege that, while the stations included this additional information in their public file, the form that was in the public file stated that the sponsors of the ads did not consider the issues to be ads that addressed a matter of national importance, despite the fact that they addressed candidates involved in the recent highly contested election for an open Congressional seat in the Atlanta suburbs.

In recent months, industry pundits sat up and took notice when online advertising giant Google started doubling down on its TV advertising investment. The tech company more than doubled its TV ad spend during the 2016 holiday quarter, laying out $109.8 million for ads promoting its Google Pixel mobile device. Launching Google Home meant a further $5 million for a single 30-second spot in January.

What’s remarkable is that Google is one of the most prominent TV spenders. The company built on digital advertising seems to know something about TV advertising that other brands don’t: In many cases, there’s just no substitute for it.

An advocacy group is launching an ad campaign targeting lawmakers who want to roll back the Federal Communications Commission’s network neutrality rules. Fight For The Future, a pro-net neutrality advocacy group, bought billboards in six states to target Sens John Thune (R-SD) and Roger Wicker (R-MS), as well as Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Reps Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Tom Graves (R-GA). The billboards show the lawmakers’ faces with text criticizing their stance and urging the public to call their offices.

The Federal Trade Commission has announced FY 2018 fees for telemarketers accessing phone numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry. The annual fees will increase slightly from FY 2017, and are set forth in a Federal Register notice. All telemarketers calling consumers in the United States are required to download the numbers on the Do Not Call Registry to ensure they do not call consumers who have registered their phone numbers. The first five area codes are free, and organizations that are exempt from the Do Not Call rules, such as some charitable organizations, may obtain the entire list for free.

Telemarketers must subscribe each year for access to the Registry numbers. The FY 2018 Registry access fees will increase slightly based on a reevaluation, as required by the Do‑Not‑Call Registry Fee Extension Act of 2007. Under the Act’s provisions, in FY 2018 telemarketers will pay $62 for yearly access to Registry phone numbers in a single area code (an increase of $1 from FY 2017), up to a maximum charge of $17,021 for all area codes nationwide (up from $16,714 in FY 2017). The fee for accessing an additional area code for a half year will increase to $31.

Over the past generation, journalism has been slowly swallowed. The ascendant media companies of our era don’t think of themselves as heirs to a great ink-stained tradition. Some like to compare themselves to technology firms. This redefinition isn’t just a bit of fashionable branding. As Silicon Valley has infiltrated the profession, journalism has come to unhealthily depend on the big tech companies, which now supply journalism with an enormous percentage of its audience—and, therefore, a big chunk of its revenue.

Dependence generates desperation—a mad, shameless chase to gain clicks through Facebook, a relentless effort to game Google’s algorithms. It leads media outlets to sign terrible deals that look like self-preserving necessities: granting Facebook the right to sell their advertising, or giving Google permission to publish articles directly on its fast-loading server. In the end, such arrangements simply allow Facebook and Google to hold these companies ever tighter.

In the US, roughly nine-in-ten adults (93%) ever get news online (either via mobile or desktop), and the online space has become a host for the digital homes of both legacy news outlets and new, “born on the web” news outlets. Digital advertising revenue across all digital entities (beyond just news) continues to grow, with technology companies playing a large role in the flow of both news and revenue.

Digital-native news outlets are also adopting other outreach and engagement methods. Fully 97% of these outlets offer newsletters, and 92% have an official presence on Apple News. Three-quarters, meanwhile, release podcasts and 61% allow comments on their articles. These outlets are also highly likely to use social media as part of their outreach. Nearly all have official pages or accounts on Facebook (100%), Twitter (100%), YouTube (97%) and Instagram (92%). Far fewer (25%) have an official channel or account on Snapchat.