“AI webpage
#crawlers are now being served their very own
#ads that ordinary visitors never see, with one firm's boss openly describing a strategy to influence what
#chatbots say about
#brands. The next time you ask Claude about where to bank, its answer may have been influenced by this
#BotTargeted content.
We only have one documented example so far, and that's Time serving
#AIOnly ads to selected AI crawlers, as spotted by Germany based freelance software developer
#VincentSchmalbach.
In a Wednesday blog post, Schmalbach detailed how he found
#sponsored content embedded in
#markdown versions of some Time pages that are served to AI crawlers but not ordinary browsers. Those pages also contained
#advertisings tags from
#AdTech vendor Mobian ahead of extensive
#FAQs for online-only bank Ally. The FAQs include brand "facts," such as the number of fee-free ATMs associated with the branchless bank, alongside claims that Ally is "the only bank built for life today," putting it in "a category of one."
AI poisoning with advertising.
#AI /
#advert
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