Zedo
Zedo (trademark styled as ZEDO) is a privately held company founded in 1999 by Roy de Souza, which provides several online advertising products and services to Internet publishers, advertisers, and agencies.[1] The company works with publishers who sell space on their web pages to online advertisers. Zedo's servers send advertisements to users' browsers.[2] Zedo uses an HTTP cookie to track users' browsing history resulting in targeted pop-up ad and pop-under ads. The cookie is often flagged by spyware and adware removal programs.[3] In a 2013 case study written by Amazon, Amazon described ZEDO as a company that "develops innovative technology solutions to help publishers sell and deliver Internet ads".[4]
Private | |
Industry | Online Advertising Technology |
Founded | September 1999 |
Headquarters | San Francisco, California, USA |
Key people | Roy de Souza, Co-Founder/CEO; Paul Prior, President; (the late) Joseph Jacob, CTO; Summer Koide, VP Products and Services; |
Products | ZINC premium network (for Advertisers), Zedo Ad Server (for Publishers, Advertisers, Networks) Network Optimization (for Publishers) Behavioral Targeting (for Networks) |
Website | www |
History
Zedo began in 1999. The company headquarters is located in the North Beach district of San Francisco, California. Zedo's development center is in India.[5] In 2001, it expanded by offering the ad-serving technology to large websites.
By 2004, the use of filters to limit pop-ups and pop-unders increased. Zedo began using intromercials—advertisements served before the requested content—as an alternate method.[6]
Zedo has also experimented with creating its own social networking sites. In 2006, it launched a social networking site where users get shopping advice from friends who own products called Zebo.com.[7]
In 2011, Zedo started to work with newspaper publishers.[8]
Criticism
Zedo uses HTTP cookies to track users' browsing and advertisement viewing history.[9] A writer for The Independent called pop-unders from Zedo and other providers "annoying" while also describing the advertisements' windows as a "seemingly endless barrage".[1] Technologist Danny Sullivan has stated that Zedo carries misleading "junk" ads linking to fake news sites.[10]
Zedo offers an option to opt out of targeted advertisements[11] and says that it has an anti-spyware policy.[12]
References
- Goldberg, Andy (2002-10-07). "Internet advertising: Top of the pops". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2008-04-24. Retrieved 2012-07-16.
- Heim, Sarah J. (2001-07-21). "Zedo Ad Serving Technology puts consumers in control". AllBusiness.com. Retrieved 2008-07-05.
- Kaye, Kate (September 13, 2006). "Anti-Spyware Programs Snare Ad Cookies, Google Cookies Evade All". ClickZ.com. Retrieved December 10, 2009.
- "AWS Case Study: ZEDO". Aws.amazon.com. Retrieved 2014-04-04.
- Kaiser, Nathan. "Interview with Roy de Souza, CEO of Zedo". Npost. Retrieved April 20, 2012.
- Olsen, Stefanie (June 4, 2004). "Revenge of the pop-ups". Cnet. Retrieved April 20, 2012.
- Tedeschi, Bob (April 30, 2007). "Got Roomfuls of Stuff? Now Sites Will Help Keep Track of It". The New York Times.
- "Zedo refocusing on newspapers". News&Tech. Retrieved 24 January 2011.
- Danny Sullivan. "Of Misleading Acai Berry Ads & Fake Editorial Sites". daggle.com. Retrieved 2011-01-29.
- "Opt Out". Zedo. Retrieved 2013-03-07.
- "Fight Spyware". Zedo. Retrieved 2013-03-07.