In-Text Ads Stir Controversy

November 27, 2006, by Dawn Anfuso, iMedia Connection

As mainstream media like Fox News, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Popular Mechanics embrace in-text advertising, The Wall Street Journal reports that the ad technique is drawing some fire.

The main argument is that this advertising method, which offers advertisers the opportunity to buy linked keywords within the text of news articles, blurs the line between content and commerce. 
 
"It´s ethically problematic at the least and potentially quite corrosive of journalistic quality and credibility," Bob Steele, the senior ethics faculty member at journalism school Poynter Institute, told The Journal.
 
Some news companies, including Dow Jones & Co. which publishes The Wall Street Journal Online and other websites, agree and refuse to run the ads.
 
But other publishers see nothing wrong with them, insisting they are part of their continuing experimentation with different forms of online advertising.
 
Vibrant Media Inc., Kontera Technologies Inc. and MIVA Inc. are three online-ad brokers signing up publishers for the service, and finding advertisers willing to buy keywords with which to link ads. Sony, Ford Motor Co. and Ask.com are among leading advertisers buying into the process.
 
To learn more about in-text advertising, read "The Value of In-Text Advertising" by Kontera´s CEO.
 
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