Taboola and Outbrain decide to put all their garbage in one bag
Two of the internet’s worst litterbugs, Taboola and Outbrain, Israeli companies now based in New York, are to merge in a deal worth $850 million — well, theoretically a merger but in reality an acquisition by the former that takes its name and will be run by its CEO. The idea is to gain volume and probably go public in a bid to stand up to Google and Facebook’s dominance of online advertising.
In case you wondered, Taboola and Outbrain are responsible for those ads you see at the bottom of web pages along the lines of “around the web” or “you might like”. Clickbait aimed solely at monetizing traffic. They’re known in the biz as chumboxes, a reference to the boxes of low quality fish meat used as bait.
Taboola and Outbrain are a good idea gone bad: they were originally a recommendation system for people to find articles related to their interest, but over time have become a platform for the worst kind of internet content, feeding off other publications to get a few clicks. An entire industry dedicated to supplementing our information diet with junk food.
Sites that use Taboola or Outbrain are now spoiled by dumb, sensationalist headlines, but that generate money, supposedly compensating for the damage to their reputation from being associated with this kind of junk. There is clearly a…
