To show how easy it is for plagiarized news sites to get ad revenue, I made my own

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From CNBC:

Last month, a story I’d written had just gone live. I punched a few keywords into Google search to pull it up so I could grab the link.

That was when I noticed a publication called the “New York Times Post” had also just published a story with the exact same headline.

When I clicked the link, I noticed that it was my story in its entirety. And it had ads all over it.

. . . .

These phony “news” sites with realistic names and stolen stories aren’t new — they’ve been ripping off publishers and taking advertiser dollars for years.

But as the pandemic hits the publishing industry and news sites like Conde Nast, Vice and Vox cut pay and lay off more employees, the issue feels more pressing than ever.

Many advertisers don’t want to advertise on publishers’ coronavirus stories out of fear they’ll face negative brand connotation for being alongside that content. Yet, through the muddy supply chain of digital media, many are ending up on that content anyway. Only here, it’s stolen.

A two-year study by the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers and PwC articulated with new clarity how the digital media ecosystem hemorrhages cash on its way to publishers. It tracked 15 UK advertisers, including Disney and Unilever, and found that half a brand’s digital marketing spend is absorbed by middlemen before reaching a publisher. Worse, it found that about one-third of the supply chain fees advertisers pay cannot be traced, meaning that it’s impossible for advertisers to know exactly where their money is going.

Link to the rest at CNBC and thanks to Dave for the tip.