Tag: advertising

Citizen Lab Exposes Israeli Spyware Infecting Phones Through Ordinary Ads

Israeli mercenary spyware reached potentially hundreds of millions of devices worldwide through ordinary online advertisements that required no user interaction to deliver their payload, according to research by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab. [1]

The findings published Thursday, Oct. 15, said the incident is likely to be the first confirmation of zero-click mercenary spyware delivered through targeted ads [2]. The ads, loaded with the Candiru spyware, were placed by Israeli firm Discover-Tech.

What The Citizen Lab Investigation Found

During a four-month period examined by researchers, Discover-Tech ads appeared on almost 200,000 unique websites and Android and iOS applications across dozens of countries. [1] The Citizen Lab said the advertising supply chain effectively functions as a mass-profiling and infection system capable of reaching enormous populations with no user action whatsoever.

Scope Extended to Sensitive Networks, Researchers Say

According to The Citizen Lab, Discover-Tech ad impressions were also found in North Atlantic Treaty Organization and United Nations networks, the European Parliament, the European Commission and more than a dozen national governments. Ads also appeared within media organizations in eight countries, including Australia, Mexico and across Europe. The pattern suggests that the advertising infrastructure used in the campaign reached deeply into government, military and journalistic environments where surveillance would be most valuable.

Platform Access and Prior Blacklisting

Candiru’s rebrand to Integrity Labs followed a 2025 acquisition by the U.S. private equity firm Integrity Partners, which is not subject to U.S. sanctions. This corporate restructuring allowed the spyware operation to continue under a new identity while its prior entity remained on the blacklist.

Following the findings by the two research groups, Google, IAB Europe, Beeswax and other platforms disconnected Discover-Tech’s access to the digital advertising market. In November 2021, Candiru was also used to target Middle East Eye and other websites, according to the security firm ESET, in an attack that targeted links to the Middle East with a strong focus on Yemen and the surrounding conflict.

Researcher Comments and Context

“The way online advertising works today is a systemic security threat,” Wolfie Cristl, a senior researcher at The Citizen Lab, told Reuters. The reports describe an advertising model in which commercial ad platforms can be repurposed for tracking, reconnaissance and the automated delivery of malicious exploits without any interaction from the user.

The findings add to a growing pattern of documented abuses of commercial spyware. In September 2026, suspected spyware attacks targeted the phones of at least three Turkish ministers, with Apple sending notifications warning that the devices may have been compromised [3].

In December 2025, a joint investigation by media outlets in Greece, Israel and Switzerland revealed that Predator spyware from the Intellexa Consortium, led by a former senior Israeli intelligence official, continued to be used against targets in multiple countries despite U.S. sanctions [4]. These cases point to a broader ecosystem in which commercial spyware vendors operate across borders, adapt to sanctions and find new delivery channels.

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“Ask Your Doctor:” The Media’s Most Dangerous Tagline

Travelling to the US never fails to put me in touch with a part of American culture that I find particularly fascinating, but disturbing. Drugs. Drugs and more Drugs. I’m talking about the in-your-face, 24/7, marketing of the newest, most expensive pharmaceuticals on the planet.

All in the name of health, of course. 

You might argue, but so what? Every other consumer product gets advertised in the US—almost everywhere, to everyone, perhaps except tobacco. And lots of those things are bad for you too, such as junk food, alcohol, and gambling. 

However, drugs are different, and I often find myself experiencing a kind of vertigo as I stare, enthralled, at all the incessant drug advertising from screens everywhere I look—in airports, hotel lounges, restaurants, or bars. 

The plotlines are predictable. A slick 60 seconds and we see the fate of worried people suffering some sort of condition “ask their doctor” about Drug X, and soon the new prescription is magically transforming their lives. They turn into bliss and smiles as they romp their way through meadows of wildflowers while, sotto voce, we catch strange murmurs of liver failure and premature death. 

I find myself absorbed in the ads as if they are cultural artifacts of a strange race. Most of the Americans I know seem to be pretty healthy people, but any newcomer confronting all the US screens for the first time might conclude one thing: “Man, these people must be really sick.” 

They are sick, but not in the way of being physically sick. Sick as in showing all the adverse effects of living in a polluted information ecosystem where toxic levels of drug propaganda drift through the airwaves as freely as exhaust engulfs a freeway. 

Americans are so immersed in the smog of commercially-sponsored drug information that they might forget they used to live in a world where serious criticisms of drug industry products or behaviour were routinely reported on mainstream TV. Those halcyon days are over. 

The Land of the Free means drugmakers can, with near impunity, push their expensive products for Crohn’s disease, Colitis, or psoriasis—serious obesity, schizophrenia, and major depression with the most outlandish of claims wrapped up in crafty but misleading narratives. Drugs get advertised, and the stuff between the ads (ie: the programming, the sitcoms, and the news) won’t touch the subject with a ten-foot pole lest they upset the money chain. Meanwhile, everyone thinks this is normal? Wow. 

Not everyone. Earlier this summer, the consumer group US Public Citizen put out a petition urging the FDA to ban Direct-to-Consumer Advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs. They listed the usual reasons why DTCA is so toxic to consumers: Emotional manipulation, misleading benefit and risk information, inappropriate prescribing and overdiagnosis, the erosion of the patient-physician relationship, the promotion of low-value medications, and overall economic harm. Amen to all that.

What it all adds up to is a polluted environment in which careful and appropriate pharmaceutical use doesn’t happen. Americans are paying the highest prices for prescription drugs in the world, yet also have the most profligate use of those drugs. 

The pollution of the airwaves by Pharma propaganda is precisely the reason every other country in the world (except tiny New Zealand) bans Direct-to-Consumer Advertising (DTCA). The rest of the civilized world looked at DTCA, recognized it as a predatory assault on public health, and banned it decades ago.

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Biden Judge Orders Immediate Halt to Trump Ads After Trump Says He’ll Pay for Them Himself

A Biden-appointed judge has ruled that the Trump Administration must cease the production and airing of government-funded advertisements ahead of the midterms. 

In other words, Trump can no longer promote the United States of America or his administration in government-funded ads.

The Department of Homeland Security told the court last night that there were “no plans” to air additional ads, while asking the judge to reject the request by progressive groups for an emergency order to block the ads.

Still, U.S. District Judge Jennifer Rochon ordered the Trump Administration to stop using DHS funds to create or disseminate the ads and to cancel any upcoming ad slots for a two-week duration as court proceedings continue.

The ads, which came under fire last week, feature Trump’s statements about draining the swamp, ridding the government of Communists, and liberating America “from these villains once and for all.” The White House has described the campaign as “educational and unapologetically patriotic” public service announcements, aimed at “reminding Americans to love their country and understand what makes it worth defending, at home, at our borders, and abroad.”

“This is the final battle. With you at my side. We will demolish the deep state. We will expel the war mongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the Communists, Marxists, and Fascists. We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country. We will rout the fake news media, and we will liberate America from these villains once and for all,” Trump says in one of the ads.

At the end of the ad, a disclaimer reads: “Paid for by the U.S. Government.”

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‘Every Taxpayer… Should Be Outraged’: Anger Spreads Over ‘Illegal’ US-Funded Pro-Trump Ad

Outrage mounted Friday over a taxpayer-funded television advertisement glorifying President Donald Trump, with critics describing the 30-second spot as self-aggrandizing propaganda and questioning whether the administration violated federal law restricting the use of public money for partisan communications.

The ad—which aired this week on outlets including Fox News, Newsmax, and CBS—features a dizzying montage of Trump at rallies, White House events, sporting events, and alongside military personnel, captioned, “AMERICA WILL NEVER BE A COMMUNIST COUNTRY.”

The refrain of R&B singer JMSN’s “Love Me” plays over the rapid-fire images. The spot concludes with a voiceover from Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White praising Trump as “the toughest, most resilient person that I’ve ever met.”

At the bottom of the screen, an alarming disclosure appears, reading, “Paid for by the US government.”

The White House dismissed criticism of the ad—which aired ahead of November’s midterm elections—by calling the spot a “public service announcement” intended to remind Americans “to love their country and understand what makes it worth defending.”

However, on Friday, US Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Jack Reed (D-RI), along with Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), excoriated the clip.

“This is the sort of government propaganda one might expect in North Korea, not the United States of America, and it is an egregious and utterly illegal misuse of Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars,” the four senior congressional appropriators said in a joint statement.

“The law is not complicated,” the lawmakers added. “You cannot use taxpayer dollars for political advertisements.”

Federal appropriations law—including the funding bill Trump signed earlier this year—prohibits the use of government funds for unauthorized “publicity or propaganda purposes,” while the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has interpreted the prohibition to encompass communications whose obvious purpose is “self-aggrandizement” or “puffery,” as well as “purely partisan” communications.

The consumer advocacy watchdog group Public Citizen on Friday filed a complaint with the GAO alleging the ad “violates laws prohibiting the use of government resources for propaganda, the Hatch Act, and other related laws.”

“Whether or not President Trump was personally involved in the ad, it was conceived, produced, and distributed by Trump’s White House staff,” Public Citizen said.

US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said Friday on social media that “every taxpayer, no matter your party, should be outraged by this.”

“Your money is being used to fund campaign ads for Trump,” the senator added. “It’s totally, completely [illegal]. He’s stealing your money for his campaign.”

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DISTURBING: Woke Stanford University Caught Using AI to Race-Swap Male Student with Black Female in Ad — Student Left Feeling ‘Silenced and Erased’

Stanford University, an institution that receives hundreds of millions in taxpayer funding, was caught red-handed using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to digitally erase a student and replace him with an AI-generated Black woman in university promotional materials.

The conservative campus paper The Stanford Review reported Monday that Stanford Residential & Dining Enterprises took a photograph shot by a university photographer, ran it through AI, and published the doctored result as advertising.

Sophomore Billy Ramirez recognized the original shot. In the banner that went out, he was gone. In his place: an AI-generated Black woman. Two students to his right were also digitally slimmed down and had their faces altered.

“I was driving to school from my hometown when my friend sent me the images comparing the banner to the original photos, and I was immediately baffled,” Ramirez told The Stanford Review.

“At first, I found it hilarious that they had used AI to completely change our appearances, including my race and gender. But after looking at the comparison, I was also upset because I don’t agree with Stanford making those choices about how we were represented. Seeing my identity changed and being left out of the picture made me feel, in a way, silenced and erased from a representation that was supposed to include me.”

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Florida’s Attorney General Sues Netflix For Allegedly Harvesting, Selling Children’s Data

Attorney General James Uthmeier is seeking billions in damages from the company and asked the judge to order Netflix to stop its alleged deceptive practices.

“Parents were told kids’ profiles were a child’s own space – safe, separate, great for kids,” Uthmeier said in a news conference Wednesday.

“Families believed them. But behind the brand, Netflix built something different.”

In the lawsuit, Jill McLaughlin reporets for The Epoch Times,that Uthmeier claims Netflix offered an ad-free service that promised not to collect or sell data but began to track children and their profiles when it launched an advertising business in 2022.

The streaming service offers an under-12 profile option for children which promotes a non-advertising space, according to the state.

Uthmeier alleges Netflix violated the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and the state’s Digital Bill of Rights, including by selling sensitive personal data collected from known children without prior consent.

He seeks a permanent injunction, an order requiring Netflix to purge any deceptively collected data from Floridians, and an end to addictive designs that keep children watching on the platform, in addition to billions of dollars in civil and other monetary relief, he said.

“Parents, not streaming corporations, need to direct the upbringing of children,” Uthmeier said.

In the complaint, Uthmeier stated Netflix’s executive officer Reed Hastings told investors during a Jan. 22, 2020, earnings call the company’s model was not based on using customer data.

“We don’t collect anything, we’re really focused on just making our members happy and we’re not tied up on all that controversy around advertising,” Hastings said.

Hastings also said Netflix wasn’t interested in tracking customers’ locations or other things they were doing. “We want to be the safer spy where you can explore, you can get stimulated, have fun, enjoy, relax, and have none of the controversy around exploiting users with advertising,” Hastings said during the call.

The Netflix executive compared the company to Google, Facebook, and Amazon’s advertising models that used consumer data collection and targeting information, saying Netflix was “not controversial that way.”

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Ads Featuring Real Children’s Faces in Sexual AI Videos Persist on Meta’s Platforms

Researchers say more than 250 ads containing AI-generated child sexual abuse material have appeared on Meta’s platforms including Facebook and Instagram since early August, weeks after the company removed dozens of similar ads following reporting from Wired.

Wired reports that the nonprofit Tech Transparency Project says that in early August, Meta deleted roughly 53 ads across Facebook, Instagram and Threads that contained child sexual abuse material, telling the outlet at the time that most of the abusive ads predated the rollout of new AI tools designed to “better detect and block” harmful content. Now, the same watchdog group says ads containing sexual imagery of children are back, some of which are identical to those previously removed.

The problem didn’t stop there. Researchers say Meta has published more than 350 abusive video ads since the end of last year. Many link to so-called “nudification” apps tied to Chinese developers. Unlike the initial batch of 53 ads, the new ones used images of real children, not stock or generic photos.

One ad used an official photograph of a minor from a European royal family, transformed into a video depicting a graphic sex act. Researchers declined to name the royal in order to protect the victim.

“Researchers identified the real-world identities of four minors used in the ads,” according to TTP, whose director is Katie Paul. Three of the four are from the United States. One is a teenager who runs a social media influencer account on a Meta platform. Another is a teen influencer with a public account. The third is a stock photo model, a real person, labeled as “pre-teen” on stock photo websites.

The ads typically open with an innocuous photo of a preteen or teen girl (only one involved a boy), paired with text claiming the image is “not just a photo” and that “there are no restriction” on how it can be used. The videos morph the children’s faces into explicit sexual content, often depicting sex acts. Clicking the ads sends users to download AI face-swapping or video apps from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. Many carry the tagline: “This is the AI that men actually use.”

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Another Google Court Loss: Federal Judge Orders Tech Giant to Change Its Ad Practices After Ruling It Ran Illegal Monopoly

Google received another public flogging in federal court on Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema in Alexandria, Virginia, ordered Google to stop the conduct that has been strangling revenue from web publishers for years — the latest blow in the government’s antitrust case against the tech giant’s advertising empire.

This follows Brinkema’s ruling last year that Google violated US antitrust laws by unlawfully maintaining monopoly power in open web display advertising. It was the SECOND time a federal judge ruled that Google held an illegal monopoly in part of its business, after Judge Amit Mehta found the same thing in online search.

Google is a monopolist. The courts confirmed this again.

The Department of Justice announced its victory in their case in April 2025:

“This is a landmark victory in the ongoing fight to stop Google from monopolizing the digital public square,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “This Department of Justice will continue taking bold legal action to protect the American people from encroachments on free speech and free markets by tech companies.”

Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater went even further in the same DOJ statement:

“The Court’s ruling is clear: Google is a monopolist and has abused its monopoly power. Google’s unlawful dominance allows them to censor and even deplatform American voices. And at the same time, Google destroyed and hid information that exposed its illegal conduct. Today’s opinion confirms Google’s controlling hand over online advertising and, increasingly, the internet itself.”

Google censors and deplatforms American voices. The DOJ said it clear and out loud.

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Amazon Shares Tumble Amid News Of FTC ‘Advertiser Deception’ Lawsuit

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is about to drop a lawsuit on Amazon today alleging that the e-commerce platform manipulated prices paid by businesses to advertise on its retail platform, which made the company tens of billions of dollars over a seven-year period, WSJ reports, citing agency officials. 

According to the report:

The lawsuit, joined by a bipartisan group of more than 20 state attorneys general, will allege that Amazon deceived advertisers by secretly raising the minimum price advertisers had to pay to place ads promoting their products, FTC officials said.

The case, to be filed in a Seattle federal court, will become the consumer-protection agency’s third major case against Amazon, which agreed to pay $2.5 billion last year to settle an earlier suit alleging it tricked people into signing up for its Prime service and made it hard to cancel the subscription. Another lawsuit alleging that Amazon engaged in illegal monopolization is headed for trial next year. -WSJ

Amazon’s digital advertising platform is the third-largest in the world, behind Alphabet’s Google and Meta – earning $68 billion in ads in 2025, according to the report – which claims that advertisers suffered billions of dollars in harm by paying higher prices for ads. Some states may attempt to claw some of the money back. 

Shares shot sharply lower on the news.

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REPORT: New York Liberty Run Pro-Trans Scoreboard Message, Deny Paid Message from Group Supporting Women’s Sports

New York City’s WNBA team refused to take a paid scoreboard message from a woman who wanted to support the XX-XY movement to protect women’s sports from men identifying as women. Naturally, the team had no problem displaying pro-trans scoreboard messages.

Julie Potter, a lesbian hip-hop performer, says the New York Liberty tried to alter her message, which she paid to display at Barclays Center during the Liberty’s game against the Indiana Fever.

Potter says she has a receipt showing she paid $100 for the scoreboard message to be shown during the August 22 game, OutKick reports.

The singer adds that she asked the team to display the following message: “Thank you Jennifer Sey! XX-XY Athletics will Save the Day!”

The payment and message were accepted, Potter said, but the day before the game, she was contacted by the team and told that they would not display the message she had requested. Instead, the sales dept. told her the message they would agree to display would read, “Thank you Jennifer Sey, thank you for all you do for XX-XY Athletics.”

Potter said she told them that if they did not display the message she had paid for, she wanted to cancel it and get a refund.

Despite balking at Potter’s message, the Liberty had no problem displaying pro-transgender messages during the game.

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