AOL Buys Advertising.com For No Clear Reason

from the there-goes-that-idea dept

AOL announced today that they're buying Advertising.com. What's not entirely clear, however, is why. They claim it's to "provide advertisers with an opportunity to reach more than 140 million Internet users." Of course, advertisers already had that opportunity. Advertising.com works with advertisers to connect them to 1,500 publishers -- but now, in being owned by AOL, they'll be competing with those publishers. If that's the case, Advertising.com is likely to lose a lot of business from publishers, and will really only be useful for advertising on AOL properties. Of course, there were already ways to advertise on AOL, so it's not entirely clear how useful this will be. Still, it has to be slightly better than relying on scamming employees to sell AOL email addresses to spammers as a way of advertising to AOL customers.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 24 Jun 2004 @ 9:30am

    Aohell sucks

    Aohell doesn't pay their employees a living wage so its no surpirse an unethical employee sold the list. ( I'm not saying it was right )

    Aohell is notorious THEMSELVES for selling or "renting" their subscribers information to 3rd parties. Buying Advertising.com is proof in point.

    Aohell blathers on about how they protect your privacy and its an outright lie.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Three Men In A Boat, 24 Jun 2004 @ 11:12am

      Re: Aohell sucks

      Ah, an "AOL sucks" posting... um, BORING... sorry, but you're behind the times- this kinda thing used to be cool, but now it's just lame.

      You make three claims in your posting, and all of them are completely without basis. Unless, of course, you happen to have evidence?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 24 Jun 2004 @ 12:41pm

        Re: Aohell sucks

        Yes, I do have proof as I have set up Aohell addresses in the past specifically to prove that Aohell sold the screen name since I NEVER used it for anything.

        A post about me posting about Aohell ... even more boring than your post.

        Cheers

        link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.