Most Native Ads of Top 100 News Websites Lacked Transparency, Says OTA Study

or more native ads on their home pages. Of those sites with native ads, 71 percent failed to use words like "ad, paid or sponsored by" to disclose they were promotions, made the visibility and readability of those words difficult and/or didn't visually enough set the paid content apart from editorial content. OTA said 20 percent of the native ads needed improvement while only 9 percent met or exceeded transparency requirements. The group listed the websites that were analyzed but didn't indicate which ones failed, needed improvement and passed, though it cited a "noteworthy example" on the Wall Street Journal's home page of transparency. OTA Executive Director Craig Spiezle said in a news release that sites might gain financially in the short run by failing to disclose ads but risk their long-term reputations. “Consumers who experience annoyance, confusion and misinterpretation in native advertising, combined with increasing security and privacy issues will likely turn to using ad blockers. The result is nobody wins since sites and ad networks will lose revenue and consumers will miss out on content that is relevant to them," he said. OTA provided a checklist to help sites provide native ads without confusing readers. In December, the FTC released guidelines to protect consumers from intentionally misleading native online commercial content (see 1512290010).