Originally Posted by
Jaimito Cartero
Still getting vape ads, every night. Since IB seems to be ignoring this issue, I think this issue deserves wider media scrutiny. Since FT is open to minors, this blatant advertising to them is unconscionable.
So this is how advertising works on FT (and most other sites): Our sales team sells adspace. Any space they do not sell is filled by a third party, such as Google AdSense, which we do not control as much. So they basically fill our remaining adspace based on a combination of our site demographics and individual users' browsing history. We can and have banned the entire "tobacco" category for advertising and. Vape products are not considered part of that (in fact, they can advertise on television currently in the US).
Since you said you see them mostly later at night, it seems that whichever third party is hosting them is exercising some discretion in their display. It is also important to remember that no two users will have the same ad experience. Unfortunately, we have limited options without being able to get the ad on-screen in the office, something which we have as yet been unable to do, despite testing.