Submission + - Times Magazine now serves ads that only AI chatbots can see (theregister.com)

Submitted by mccalli on Thursday August 06, 2026 @05:15AM

mccalli writes: Times Magazine has started serving adverts with 'brand messages' to AI crawlers, which are not part of its main page. The aim seems to be to influence the chatbots to talk about the brand offerings in a positive light that can't be traced back to the actual page. Notably they've excluded Google chatbots from this, likely because Google penalise companies that show different search offerings to their bots vs actual human visitors.

More here as well as on the The Register.

Submission + - Phorm, the deep packet inspection ad-injector company, ceases trading 1

Submitted by mccalli on Friday April 15, 2016 @09:12AM

mccalli writes: Phorm, a controversial UK deep-packet inspection/ad-injection company discussed on Slashdot many times before, has ceased trading today. Phorm was controversial for, among other things, editing and approving UK government advice on privacy, offering hospitality to the police prior to a decision over prosecution, and being the subject of an EU investigation for its practices and close relationship with the then UK government. The Register has a more editorialised version of the news, but it is fair to say that Phorm will not be mourned by fans of internet privacy.

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