Guidance to help shift digital video ads to HTML5 and JavaScript formats, which are considered default media playback options in many browsers, was released Tuesday by the Interactive Advertising Bureau Technology Laboratory. “The move from Flash to HTML5 and JavaScript is vital to improving user experience in digital video advertising,” said IAB Tech Lab General Manager Alanna Gombert in a news release. “We recognize that it’s a complex transition -- one that cannot happen overnight. This guidance provides practical insights and how-to’s that simplify and facilitate the process for publishers, brands, and media agencies, as we build a stronger foundation for video marketing.” The lab also is providing one checklist for agencies and brands, and another for publishers that provide customized best practices as they make the transition over the next six months. It's recommending all video ads be in HTML5 by July. The release said tools such as a Video Ad Serving Template Validator and a JavaScript Video Player-Ad Interface Definition tester will be released in January to help with the transition.

Google allegedly violated the law and a consent agreement when it changed its privacy policy June 28 to permit combining users' personally identifiable information with DoubleClick browsing data, which the search company said it wouldn't do when it acquired the now-subsidiary nearly a decade ago (see 0712210173), said Consumer Watchdog and Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in an FTC complaint filed Monday. The complaint said Google "forced the change on users in a highly deceptive manner, without meaningful notice and consent. The change marked the culmination of a nearly decade-long deception that Google has perpetrated against its users, the FTC, and the public at large." The groups are asking the FTC to claw back all advertising revenue Google earned since the privacy policy change in June. “Fines Google has faced so far are but pocket change for Google. The company’s executives consider it merely the cost of doing business as they willfully violate our privacy,” said Consumer Watchdog Privacy Project Director John Simpson in a news release. “The FTC must take meaningful action to stop this serial abuser and force it to give up its ill-gotten gains.” The company emailed that it updated its ads systems and related user controls "to match the way people use Google today: across many different devices. Before we launched this update, we tested it around the world with the goal of understanding how to provide users with clear choice and transparency. As a result, it is 100% optional -- if users do not opt-in to these changes, their Google experience will remain unchanged. Equally important: we provided prominent user notifications about this change in easy-to-understand language as well as simple tools that let users control or delete their data." Google also noted it pre-briefed regulators on the changes.

Plaintiffs accusing a variety of broadband providers of "bait and switch" advertising plan to continue pursuing their suit after a U.S. district judge in Tampa dismissed the federal complaint and remanded it to the Florida 6th Judicial Circuit in Pasco County. Jerry Collette, one of two plaintiffs who sued as TruthinAdvertisingEnforcers.com, told us in an email Monday he will pursue the allegations there. In her order (in Pacer) last week on multiple motions to dismiss (see 1610060010), U.S. District Judge Virginia Hernandez Covington said TruthinAdvertisingEnforcers.com lacks Article III standing to bring its claims since it hasn't argued actual injury, doesn't have statutory standing to bring its Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act claim and can't bring a civil claim on the other federal statutes it cites. Being sued are Dish Network, Frontier Communications, Charter Communications, Hughes Network and EarthLink and sales agents Infinity Sales Group and GoDish.com.

AT&T Wireless is offering a buy-one-get-one smartphone deal through Dec. 24, it said Friday. New customers can get up to $695 in credits per line ($650 for the 32 GB iPhone 7 or 7 Plus; $695 for the Samsung GS7 or LG G5) for free when they trade in their current smartphone and sign up for the BOGO offer, a spokeswoman emailed us. AT&T is leveraging its DirecTV business, offering smartphone customers with DirecTV unlimited data for four smartphone lines for $180 a month after two bills at $220 per month. The fine print says after 22GB of data usage on a line in a bill cycle, AT&T “may slow data speeds” for a line for the remainder of the bill cycle “during periods of network congestion.” The eligible smartphones are “virtually every one you would want for the holidays,” said the carrier. The BOGO offer requires AT&T Next or AT&T Next Every Year plans starting at $70 per month.

Faced with a barrage of criticism about proliferating fake news, Facebook will focus efforts "on the worst of the worst, on the clear hoaxes spread by spammers for their own gain, and on engaging both our community and third party organizations," wrote Vice President-News Feed Adam Mosseri in a Thursday blog post (see 1611210002). The company is testing ways to make it easier for users to report a potentially fake story or hoax by clicking the upper right hand corner of a post, he wrote. Facebook also started a program to work with third-party fact-checking organizations that signed onto Poynter's international fact-checking code of principles. There are 43 international signatories, including ABC News, PolitiFact and Snopes, to Poynter's code. "We’ll use the reports from our community, along with other signals, to send stories to these organizations," wrote Mosseri. "If the fact checking organizations identify a story as fake, it will get flagged as disputed and there will be a link to the corresponding article explaining why." These stories may not be removed from Facebook's news section but would appear lower in the feed with a warning that they are disputed, he said, and the stories won't be promoted. The company said it's reducing financial incentives for spammers that masquerade as real publications by eliminating the ability to spoof domains, and will analyze publisher sites to see where enforcement may be necessary.

Pokemon Go-creator Niantic is commercially exploiting children and marketing junk food with last week's announcement that 7,800 Starbucks stores in the U.S. will be locations for the popular augmented reality mobile game, said Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood in a Tuesday news release. “It’s wrong to lure children to a sponsor’s location under the guise of playing a game,” said CCFC Executive Director Josh Golin. “Niantic and Starbucks should exclude children from this sneaky marketing designed to hook players on sugar-saturated, high calorie drinks.” CCFC sent a letter with a petition signed by 7,300 people to Niantic CEO John Hanke, asking the company not to direct any advertising tied to paid sponsorships to kids under 13. Golin said kids are more vulnerable than adults to ads and it's "wrong to use an extremely popular game to surreptitiously market Starbucks' sugar-laden high-calorie drinks, many of which are high in caffeine, to children." Golin previously told us children under 13 are unable to distinguish a marketing deal with playing the game and said it could amount to a case of unfair and deceptive marketing (see 1607250009). Sprint recently announced a partnership with Niantic that would make the telco's 10,500 locations part of the game (see 1612070017). Niantic "does not show sponsored locations to players under the age of 13 in Pokémon GO," it emailed. "Players under the age of 13 must have their parent's permission to play through the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) compliant verification and consent process handled by The Pokémon Company through the Pokémon Trainer Club."

Best Buy is holding a two-day Apple sale Friday and Saturday on tablets, PCs, watches, phones and accessories, it said Thursday. Consumers can save $125 on a 9.7-inch iPad Pro, $100 on a 12.9-inch-iPad Pro and $50 on the iPad mini2. The non-touch 13-inch MacBook Pro is getting a $100 cut, and select models of the MacBook Pro and Air will get $200 markdowns. Certain iMac models will be discounted by $200. Consumers will be able to save up to $500 on select Apple Watch models, while Apple Watch accessory prices will be halved, said the retailer. Best Buy is throwing in a $100 store gift card when customers sign an installment billing agreement on iPhone 7, 6s and 6s Plus devices.

Facebook discovered a discrepancy between the counts of its "Like" and "Share" buttons on the Graph API (application program interface) and the counts when a user enters a URL in the mobile app's search bar, said the social media network in a Friday blog post. "We are looking into why inputting the URL as a search query in Facebook’s mobile app might have corresponding numbers that can be higher or lower in certain cases." The company said it's trying to fix the problem. The post said the metrics count the number of likes of a URL off the site, the number of shares of a link from Facebook and the number of likes and comments on stories about a URL. Also in the post, Facebook said it's updating a tool to help advertisers better calculate how many people they can expect to reach with ads when they're creating ad campaigns; it's improving the "methodology for sampling and extrapolating potential audience sizes ... to provide a more accurate estimate for a given target audience and to better account for audiences across multiple platforms." The company said advertisers should see less than a 10 percent change in sizes in the tool. Plus, the company said it fixed an error that will count streaming reactions to live broadcasts on a post instead of counting them on shares of a post. Facebook said the total counts were right, but the metric was captured in the wrong place. The fix will be applied starting in mid-December for newly created live videos, increasing "Reactions to Post" by 500 percent on average and decreasing "Reactions from Shares of Post" by 25 percent on average (see 1609300034).

ComScore, Google and Omnicom Media Group are part of an initial group of companies to meet anti-fraud standards in a certification seal program for buyers, sellers, fraud detection vendors and intermediaries in the digital ad supply chain, said the Trustworthy Advertising Group in a Wednesday news release. "The initial recipients of the TAG 'Certified Against Fraud' Seal represent the connective tissue of digital advertising, including the world's largest publishers, ad agencies, and ad tech providers," said TAG CEO Mike Zaneis. A second group of certified companies will be announced early next year, the group said. Other companies certified under the program, which was first announced in May (see 1605230010), are Amobee, DoubleVerify, Dstillery, WPP's GroupM, Horizon Media, Integral Ad Science, Interpublic Group, Moat, OpenX Technologies, ProData Media, Rocket Fuel, Sovrn and White Ops. TAG was formed by the American Association of Advertising Agencies, Association of National Advertisers and Interactive Advertising Bureau to eliminate fraudulent traffic, fight internet piracy and malware and promote transparency.

Best Buy was to begin selling 11 special edition tech products Sunday, most of which, it said in a Friday announcement, would be available only at select stores and on its e-commerce site. Many of the items are to be limited-time offerings and “once they’re gone, they’re gone,” said the retailer. Exclusivity appeared to be about minor cosmetic differences, we found in a product search. The Shinola Magnolia Edition Runwell turntable ($2,500) has a red belt vs. the dark gray belt that comes with the company’s wood-base turntable. A live chat rep at Shinola told us the limited Magnolia edition would be available only through Best Buy’s Magnolia Home Theater stores. The Kate Spade website featured several styles and colors of $98 activity trackers, but not a “Bazooka pink” style described by Best Buy. Other items on the list: a Lenovo Yoga 910 laptop with a glass lid ($1,299), Beats Unity wireless headphones ($379), DJI Phantom 4 Quadcopter ($1,199), Tumi case ($79) for the Surface Pro, Beatles collectible Pro-Ject turntable ($649), Harry Potter eight-film box set ($99) and GoPro Hero5 action camera ($399) that includes an entry into Best Buy’s holiday sweepstakes for a chance to win a trip to the 2017 X Games. On how products were chosen, a Best Buy spokeswoman told us customers want “the latest and greatest in tech, and they also want to have something that is unique and speaks to them directly.” The items include free shipping, as do all products bought on Bestbuy.com through Dec. 24.