pot of gold
Business

Fresh from its $272 million win against Uber, class action lawyers Maurice Blackburn are now eyeing off Google’s adtech

- December 3, 2024 2 MIN READ

Law firm Maurice Blackburn is wading into an issue that’s vexed the federal government, competition watchdog the ACCC, as well as the media, investigating a potential class action against Google for alleged anti-competitive conduct in Australia’s digital advertising market. The idea is likely to be tempting to publishers Google has not struck deals with under… Read more »

Sean Law and Tom Sawkins
Funding

Outdoor adtech startup Doohly banks $500,000 pre-Seed to speed up digital ad execution

- April 29, 2024 2 MIN READ

Outdoor advertising startup Doohly has raised $500,000 in a pre-Seed round. The raise was backed by Melbourne VC Skalata along with Archangel Ventures, with the funding earmarked to expand Doohly’s digital-out-of-home (DOOH) offering. The startup is an end-to-end programmatic ecosystem for DOOH advertising, combining an independent content management system (CMS) with native integrations to a programmatic… Read more »

ACCC Social media
Social Media

Consumer watchdog launches influencer crackdown over hidden ads after social media users dob them in

- January 30, 2023 2 MIN READ

The Australia Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) is combing through social media platforms to identify influencers that don’t disclose affiliations with the product and company they’re promoting. Social media users reported more than 100 influencers to the regulator.  Most tip-offs were about beauty, lifestyle, parenting, and fashion influencers who failed to follow the advertising disclosure… Read more »

Funding

Adtech startup BlendAI raises $1.5 million to automate e-commerce online ads

- July 13, 2022 2 MIN READ

Sydney adtech startup BlendAI has raised $1.5 million, two years after launching, to help small businesses with their online advertising. The round was led by Sydney-based venture fund EVP, and is for earmarked for fuelling customer growth, continued product enhancements and hiring BlendAI’s first go-to-market focused resources. BlendAI simplifies and centralises online advertising for e-commerce stores.… Read more »

Funding

Adtech startup raises $5 million

- June 6, 2022 2 MIN READ

Adtech startup Veridooh has raised $5 million in a Series A as it looks to expand offshore. The round was led by EVP and partner Dan Szekely will join the Veridooh board. Jelix Ventures, Saniel and Gravel Road also participated. It’s the company’s first external funding after launching in 2019. Veridooh’s platform is designed to… Read more »

Rebel Wilson, Afterpay
Fintech

Financial counsellors want Afterpay’s Rebel Wilson TV ad pulled for using children to sell the BNPL

- July 29, 2021 2 MIN READ

Peak body Financial Counselling Australia (FCA) has written to advertising regulator Ad Standards asking for Afterpay’s TV ad featuring Rebel Wilson to be banned over its “gratuitous and inappropriate” use of a children. The ad features Wilson sitting in a play room with a young child saying “if credit cards and cash had a baby… Read more »

Mark Zuckerberg
Global tech

Facebook clamps down on underage ad targeting after Australian research revealed children were shown gambling, smoking & alcohol ads

- July 28, 2021 3 MIN READ

Instagram’s parent company, Facebook will default set Instagram accounts for users under 16 to private, and restrict targeted advertising to them following an Australian expose that revealed how easy it was for marketers to show smoking, gambling, extreme weight loss, and alcohol advertising to underage users. The social media giant announced the changes in a… Read more »

Topics

Australia is forcing Facebook and Google to pay the media for news – here’s how it will work

- August 3, 2020 4 MIN READ

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has released its draft news media bargaining code, announced on Friday by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg. The draft code allows commercial news businesses to bargain – individually or collectively – with Google and Facebook, in order to be paid for news the tech giants publish on their services. According to… Read more »