public relations

Investors knew that the world wasn’t clicking for online advertisers right now. In a snap on Monday night, they grasped how dire the situation might be. Nearly every major player in the sector reported a notable slowdown in advertising revenue growth during the recent first-quarter earnings season. All but one actually missed Wall Street’s targets for that category as well. Then, in a surprise announcement, Snap Inc., SNAP -40.36% the…

A bipartisan group of senators led by Utah Republican Mike Lee introduced legislation Thursday that would take aim at conflicts of interest in the advertising technology industry and force Google to break up its dominant online-ad business.The bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.), is among the most aggressive of the legislative proposals circulating in Congress that aim to rein in the power of Big Tech. The Competition…

At the upfronts, as the television industry’s annual pitch event for advertisers is known, the traditional TV aspect of the spiel this year may have never been less important.Amid the hurtle toward streaming video, this week’s presentations were less focused on networks’ traditional hour-by-hour scheduling strategies and more about the actual content—now largely available to consumers wherever and whenever they want to watch. In some superficial ways, at least, the upfronts were a return to the norm. After two…

Disney+ will carry about four minutes of commercials an hour on the ad-supported version of the platform set to launch later this year, company officials said. The company has also decided not to run any commercials during programming catering to preschool children when the ad-supported version of the service launches, officials said. Preschoolers who use their own profile to watch the ad-supported Disney+ won’t see any advertising no matter what they choose to stream, they said. “We’re never going to collect…

Marriott International Inc. is introducing a media network this month with Yahoo Inc. that will help advertisers target consumers, in part by using the hotel chain’s data on its guests, to bring them ads on places such as the hotel’s websites and, eventually, on the TV sets in their rooms. Marriott Media Network comes as the marketing industry is developing new ways to reach consumers amid a wave of privacy changes, including a plan by Alphabet Inc.’s Google to…

Twitter Inc. TWTR -2.47% Chief Executive Parag Agrawal said the company is pausing hiring and looking at ways to trim costs as he announced on Thursday the departure of two senior executives, according to an internal memo. The changes come weeks after the social-media platform agreed to be acquired by Elon Musk for $44 billion and are the latest example of a technology…

Companies including Chevron Corp. , Quest Diagnostics Inc. and Ernst & Young LLP are pushing to narrow proposed cybersecurity rules from the Securities and Exchange Commission in the private sector’s latest attempt to shape a growing array of regulations by Washington. In comments on rules proposed by the SEC, businesses in recent days have urged the agency to harmonize its deadline of four business days to disclose security incidents with similar rules from…

The technology industry, which powered the U.S. economy during the pandemic and grew at tremendous scale during a decade of ultralow interest rates, is confronting one of the most punishing stretches in years.Global powerhouses and fledgling startups are feeling pain from a variety of economic, industry and market factors, spawning postpandemic turbulence in e-commerce, digital advertising, electric vehicles, ride-hailing and other segments. Companies that emerged as job-creating juggernauts in the past two…

At least 15 advertising-technology companies had sufficient information to detect that publisher Gannett Co. GCI 3.19% provided inaccurate data to advertisers for more than nine months, but the firms failed to connect the dots and alert their clients, according to researchers who studied the incident.Gannett, owner of USA Today and news outlets in 46 U.S. states, said it unintentionally provided the wrong information in online ad auctions, due to an error that affected…

The precise movements of millions of users of the gay-dating app Grindr were collected from a digital advertising network and made available for sale, according to people familiar with the matter.The information was available for sale since at least 2017, and historical data may still be obtainable, the people said. Grindr two years ago cut off the flow of location data to any ad networks, ending the possibility of such data collection today, the company said. The commercial availability of the personal information, which…