Advertisers do not block ads on disinformation portals
Katarina Bulatović, Samo Demšar
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At least five Slovenian portals which are sources of disinformation or disseminate disinformation earned advertising euros through the Google AdSense platform in 2021 and 2022, Oštro can reveal. Advertisers could block advertising on disinformation portals, but they do not.
Illustration by Jernej Žumer
In April this year, the Nova24tv portal reported that police in Ljubljana recorded 57 rapes in the span of three months. The portal referred to a parliamentary question by Alenka Jeraj, MP of the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS), who claimed that the perpetrators were illegal migrants. The MP's question was picked up by at least four other portals linked to the party, but the claim was fake news.
There were three ad spaces next to the article that displayed ads via Google AdSense. Google's policy states that it does not allow advertising alongside content that misleads users about political, social or other matters of public interest.
Oštro analysed the advertising data available to it of 17 portals that are sources of disinformation or quote or link to disinformation. The data show that in 2021 and 2022, at least 269 advertisers advertised on at least 10 of these sites using different online advertising platforms. At least five portals used Google AdSense.
Advertisers can disable advertising on certain websites in Google AdSense settings. After receiving a request to reply from Oštro, Glami Group, a company that advertises clothing and fashion accessories, disabled advertising on Nova24tv, Demokracija and E-Maribor, which Oštro's Razkrinkavanje.si project found to be direct or indirect sources of disinformation.
Mimovrste, which advertised on Nova24tv via Google Ads for at least nine months in the period covered by the analysis, explained that they are not interested in political affiliation but in reaching customers.
According to an estimate by Oštro, which is based on calculations by Matěj Novák, a Czech digital marketing specialist, the publishers of the five portals included in the analysis received between €61,700 and €117,700 over two years through Google AdSense. Data from Erar, a portal that tracks the use of public funds, shows that they received at least another €37,640 in advertising revenue from the public sector.
Nova24tv, the biggest Google AdSense beneficiary
Oštro analysed the available data for 2021 and 2022 about ads placed on Slovenian digital news portals which publish disinformation or misleading content, or republish it. At that time, at least Nova24tv, Demokracija, Domovina, Škandal24 and E-Maribor advertised through Google AdSense.
According to the methodology of Razkrinkavanje.si, Oštro's fact-checking project, these five portals have published, republished or linked to at least 50 false, manipulative or inaccurate claims since mid-2019. Nova24tv alone has published 30 and republished seven.
Demokracija published at least five such articles during this period and republished 11. E-Maribor published three and republished at least one. Domovina published at least two and republished at least one more while Škandal24 published at least one.
For the analysis, Oštro used data from Similarweb, an analytics company specialising in estimating the number of page views and the domains of advertisers who advertise on websites.
For seven of the portals included in the analysis, it was not possible to obtain Similarweb advertising data. Five of them were found to have been using the same Google AdSense account as revealed by Oštro in December 2022. According to Vladimír Smitka, a Czech digital security researcher, this showed that “the money from Google advertising ended up in the same pocket”.
Zoran Savin, Director of IAB Slovenia, said that the prices of online advertising in Slovenian media are mostly based on the CPM value, i.e., the price paid by advertisers per one thousand impressions of an ad.
There is no single price list of online ads in Slovenia, but the media’s ad prices are, according to Savin, “very similar”. They depend on the size and type of an ad, volume discounts and other types of rebates.
For example, a banner ad on the most widely read portal in Slovenia, 24ur.com, costs €9 per thousand impressions, according to the price list of the media company Pro Plus, while an ad of comparable size on Dnevnik costs €12.
Through the Google AdSense platform, the five publishers received between €61,700 and €117,700 in advertising revenue in 2021 and 2022, according to Oštro’s estimate.
Oštro calculated this range based on the estimated number of visits to the websites during the period, the number of Google ads, and an unofficial estimate of the average price per thousand impressions on the Slovenian market.
The formula for the calculation of the Google AdSense revenue estimate was developed by Matěj Novák, a Czech digital marketing specialist, based on the number of ads, the number of ad impressions, and the average value per thousand impressions.
“It is impossible to get more precise values,” Novák told Oštro, pointing out that several factors influence the estimated value, including the position and visibility of the ads and the blocking of their display on a particular site.
The number of ads on the analysed portals varies because users access the portals on different devices and use different settings, so Oštro calculated Google AdSense revenue for the minimum and maximum number of ads on each portal. The values are thus shown as intervals. The number of ad impressions is based on their monthly ad impressions estimates, available via Similarweb, and the number of ads published via Google AdSense.
Oštro assumed that the average value of an ad per thousand impressions is 50 cents which was based on data and experience of four unrelated sources. Three of them work in marketing departments of various Slovenian media, and one in a marketing agency, but they did not wish to be named because ad prices are considered to be a business secret.
Peter Mesarec, a digital marketing consultant, pointed out that the average value is “extremely difficult to estimate” and varies widely depending on the price advertisers are willing to pay to display an ad. For example, they are willing to pay more for best-selling services and products, such as those containing CBD.
Among the analysed portals that used Google AdSense, the publisher of Nova24tv, the company Nova Hiša, was the top earner in 2021 and 2022, according to these estimates.
Oštro estimated that Nova Hiša generated between €40,100 and €60,100 in revenue from Google AdSense during this period. In this same period the company had total revenue of €1.15 million. Taking the average estimated revenue from advertising on the platform, this would represent approximately 4.3% of the company's revenue.
Nova Obzorja, which publishes Demokracija and Škandal24, had a revenue of €2.77 million in the period, and earned between €15,700 and €47,200 from advertising via Google AdSense, which would represent around 1.1% of its total revenue.
During this period, Domovina was first published by the institute Iskreni (until September last year) and then the company Domovina (since September last year). Together, they generated at least €3,730 from advertising via Google AdSense, which would represent less than one per cent of the total revenue in 2021 and 2022.
The publisher of E-Maribor, Silvo Farkaš, a sole proprietor, received between €2,200 and €3,800 in advertising through this platform during this period, according to Oštro’s estimates.
Boris Tomašič, director of Nova Obzorja and Nova Hiša, which publish Nova24tv and Demokracija, respectively, responded to Oštro's queries about advertising revenue through Google AdSense by saying: “Quite a few of the figures you have stated are incorrect.”
Tomašič did not specify which data was incorrect. Oštro provided him with estimates of advertising revenue on Nova24tv via Google AdSense, data on the total amount of public money received for online advertising, based on data from Erar and the replies of public sector clients which had paid Nova24 during the analysed period.
Oštro asked Tomašič which numbers were wrong, but he avoided answering by saying: “What you are doing is not journalism. You make something up, in this case a number, and then you ask me to tell you the correct one, otherwise you will use made-up data. What is the purpose of your questions?”
Oštro explained that the data we had provided did not account for the use of ad blockers and was collected for an investigation into online advertising on Slovenian news portals which are a source of disinformation. Oštro also provided him with the latest estimated intervals of Google AdSense revenue.
Tomašič then stated that Nova24tv was not a source of disinformation and is therefore of no interest for Oštro’s investigation: “If you continue to make these claims, we will take legal action against you.”
Regardless, Oštro asked how much Nova Obzorja received from ads run on Demokracija and Škandal24. Tomašič replied: “Your data is not accurate.” He did not specify which data he was referring to nor why it was inaccurate but said that he was waiting for Oštro's answers to his questions.
Igor Vovk, the director of Iskreni, explained that revenue is a business secret. He denied that Domovina was a source of disinformation or that it republished disinformation.
When asked how much the E-Maribor received through Google AdSense, the publisher Silvo Farkaš replied that the financial data of individual publishers of digital advertisements is usually not publicly available because it is designated as confidential. He pointed out that platforms measuring website traffic can display different traffic data, which can affect the accuracy of the estimate.
“We understand how important it is for our brand to be associated with reputable and trusted information sources. Your findings have therefore been invaluable.”
Oštro calculated the ad impressions on the portals that used Google AdSense in 2021 and 2022 based on Similarweb’s estimates of the monthly page views on these portals, and the number of ads published via the platform. The equation was developed by Matěj Novák, a Czech digital marketing specialist.
The number of ads on the landing pages of the portals differs from the number of ads published alongside the articles, so Ošrtro first calculated the average number of ads displayed.
We took into account an estimate by Boštjan Špetič, CEO of Outbrain, a media buying agency, who said that front pages account for 20% of clicks and individual pages for 80%. The majority accesses articles via social networks rather than the site's landing page.
The number of ad views was multiplied by the estimated CPM value for the Slovenian market, estimated in line with data and experience of four unrelated sources. Zoran Savin, director of IAB Slovenia, told Oštro that prices of online advertising in Slovenian media are mostly based on CPM values.
Google pays publishers for displaying ads based on the number of clicks or impressions, depending on the type of ad.
Similarweb's web analytics tool only provides access to estimated website traffic figures. According to Matěj Novák, who has more than 15 years of marketing experience, Similarweb's estimates can be up to four times higher than the actual number of visits. To get a conservative estimate of the revenue from online advertising via Google AdSense, we thus divided the number by four.
The sensibility of this approach was confirmed by mathematician Vít Tuček, a fellow at the Institute for Information Studies and Librarianship at Charles University in Prague. He based his review on two published studies which showed that Similarweb estimates can be 50–60% off. Although this method is not perfect, Tuček said it gives a reasonable range of values on visits with a very low probability that true figures are outside this range.
Novák told Oštro that around 20% of web users use ad blockers, so their page visits do not contribute to the revenue that publishers receive from advertising via Google AdSense. We therefore reduced the estimates by 20% in line with Novák's estimate.
Supporting the disinformation ecosystem
Advertisers who want to market their products through Google create an account on Google Ads, define the geographic region, create an ad, and set a monthly budget limit.
Ads are served to users in the desired region as they browse the web and on portals that have signed up to Google AdSense. Google pays publishers for ads served on a site based on the number of times the ads are clicked or displayed, and the publishers receive 68% of the revenue from each ad.
Publishers of websites displaying ads through Google AdSense must comply with Google's policy which prohibits the publication of many types of content, such as sexually explicit photos or demonstrably inaccurate claims that could significantly undermine participation in, or trust in, the electoral system or the democratic processes. Publishers are also not allowed to publish harmful claims about health care and to contradict scientifically established claims about climate change.
“Google's algorithms determine which pages will display ads. Sometimes they determine that they will appear on a disinformation website,” Novák told Oštro. The ads are displayed automatically through the platform, depending on the user's activity and the price of the ad, among other factors.
“Google's platforms do not allow advertising on pornographic sites, but are such sites less dangerous to society than disinformation? If they can ban pornography, why can't they ban disinformation?" Novák wondered.
Similarweb data shows that in 2021 and 2022, at least 269 advertisers used different advertising networks on at least 10 Slovenian portals that spread or linked to disinformation.
Inspigroup, which manages the domain Glami.si, advertised for 17 months, and About You SE & Co. (Aboutyou.si) for more than a year during the analysed period. These companies mainly advertise clothing and footwear.
The price comparison website Ceneje and the online store Mimovrste advertised for 11 and nine months, respectively, and the energy group Petrol co-owned by the state for three months.
However, in Google Ads settings advertisers can specify where they don’t want to show their ads. “This is something they should do, otherwise they are supporting the disinformation system,” Novák warned.
“When ads from specific companies are published next to news articles that violate human rights, I find their placement very questionable. But that is, of course, the decision of each advertiser. The problem I see is that we do not pay enough attention to the evaluation of such content,” said IAB’s Zoran Savin.
Urša Golob Podnar, a professor at the Department of Marketing Communication and Public Relations at Ljubljana’s Faculty of Social Sciences, told Oštro that companies which claim to be socially responsible must do so in their advertising, too: “This includes not only what and how to advertise, but also where to advertise – especially when the question of where to advertise is linked to (indirectly) supporting practice,s such as the spread of disinformation and fake news.”
Ceneje also claims on its website that its goal is not only profit but also socially responsible action, while Petrol claims that it demonstrates social responsibility and commitment to sustainable development on a daily basis.
Golob Podnar also pointed out that corporate responsibility includes knowing and responding to the spread of disinformation and fake news in the context of advertising activities. “In terms of an advertiser's social responsibility, it is essential to keep the agency involved in key advertising decisions. This includes the independent use of online advertising preferences, which may differ from automated platform suggestions.”
The Slovenian Chamber of Advertising did not wish to comment on online advertising on portals that are a source of disinformation because "neither the chamber nor the advertising tribunal can comment on the content of news portals”.
Inspigroup responded to Oštro by saying that Google Ads allows advertisers to place ads according to certain criteria but does not always avoid controversial platforms or portals that spread disinformation. They are aware of the problematic nature of placing ads on such sites.
After it received questions from Oštro, Glami deactivated the automated advertising of its products on Nova24tv, Demokracija and E-Maribor. “We understand how important it is for our brand to be associated with reputable and trusted information sources. Your findings have therefore been invaluable.”
Mimovrste said that the company’s criteria for choosing an advertising platform is to reach all its customers, and not political affiliation or customer discrimination. “We always respect and comply with the law, and it goes without saying that the ads displayed by advertising tools should never be confused with any form of political endorsement.” Oštro did not ask the company about its political affiliat
ion.Petrol makes advertising decisions based on parameters, such as range and purchasing power, and also carefully selects the topics of individual media outlets. “We warn both the media agency and the media outlet to avoid positioning ourselves alongside such content. At Petrol, we are already exploring ways to further distance ourselves from such content or contexts.”
Petrol did not say why the company did not blockt portals which share disinformation.
About you SE & Co. and Ceneje did not respond to Oštro’s questions.
Last year, an investigation by ProPublica, a US non-profit media organisation, on online advertising via Google platforms had found that Google AdSense ads were more likely to appear via Google AdSense on sites that spread disinformation in languages other than English.
At the time, Google told ProPublica that they were spending more money to block ads on sites which do not comply with its policies. They did not specify the amount but said that they have taken a number of measures to combat disinformation in more than 50 languages. In 2021, they removed ads from more than 1.7 billion publishers' pages in Google AdSense and from 63,000 other sites worldwide.
When contacted by Oštro, a representative of Google's communications department asked for clarification of the thematic focus of the disinformation that Oštro was investigating. Despite being given further clarifications, they have not answered Oštro’s request for a reply. We will publish Google’s reply when we receive it.
In 2019 the Global Disinformation Index, a non-profit organisation that analyses websites with false and misleading content, estimated that such websites earned $235 million annually from disinformation. As much as 70% of the advertising was placed via Google’s platforms, and others via other ad-tech companies, such as AppNexus, Amazon and Criteo.
Ministry of Culture, the largest funder
To get as broad a picture of publishers’ revenue from the 17 portals included in the analysis as possible, Oštro also analysed data from Erar, a tool that tracks public spending.
In 2021 and 2022, these portals received just over €726,360 from 222 users of public funds. Most of this money, a total of €156,400, came from the Ministry of Culture as grant payments for successful applications to public calls for co-financing media content.
The Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities paid €130,000 to Iskreni during this period. From March 2020 to June 2022, the ministry was headed by Janez Cigler Kralj, who resigned as co-founder of the institute Iskreni three days before taking up his ministerial post. The link between Iskreni and Cigler Kralj had previously been exposed by Citizen D’s Domen Savič in 2020.
The Municipality of Ljubljana paid €25,321 to Geopolar, which published the Notranjska and Utrip Ljubljane portals. This was almost half of the total revenue the company generated during this time.
Copies of invoices and purchase orders provided to Oštro by the municipality show that the company conducted five seminars on crisis communication and communicating with citizens and the public for the SDS party’s club of city councillors.
Until May 2022, the owner and director of Geopolar was Zoran Mojškerc, a long-time SDS local councillor in Logatec and now an MP for the party.
In March this year Mojškerc was questioned about the seminars for Ljubljana’s city councillors by the Parliamentary Commission on the alleged illegal financing of political parties and party propaganda in the media. Mojškerc did not answer the commission's questions about the seminars.
Last May, he was succeeded as director of the company by his wife Božena Furlan Mojškerc, also a member of SDS, while Ladislava Furlan, Mojškerc's mother-in-law and a former SDS municipal councillor in Logatec, became the owner. According to Slovenian business register data, all three share the same address.
The register of beneficial owners, where companies are required to register their beneficial owners under the anti-money laundering law, still lists Mojškerc as the sole beneficial owner of Geopolar.
The company is also listed among the companies that are subject to restrictions in doing business with the Logatec municipality and, since May last year, also with the National Assembly.
The Commission for the Prevention of Corruption confirmed to Oštro that it had completed a preliminary examination of Geopolar but did not confirm suspicions of breaches of the Integrity and Prevention of Corruption Act. However, they suspected irregularities covered by other authorities and referred the case to the police and the Court of Audit on 4 October. The Commission is still conducting an asset investigation related to this case.
The police told Oštro that it could not provide answers due to protection of personal data.
The Court of Audit confirmed that it had received an audit petition on 4 October concerning Geopolar but said that the court's annual work programme is confidential. It could not confirm or deny, if an audit will be carried out.
“Google’s platforms do not allow advertising on pornographic sites, but are such sites less dangerous to society than disinformation? If they can ban pornography, why can’t they ban disinformation?”
At least 9 public advertisers
During the analysed period, 222 users of public money paid the publishers of 17 portals for services. Oštro limited its analysis to the 31 who have paid at least €3,000 to at least one of the publishers. We asked them about the purpose of payments, and, if the payment was for advertising services, to provide copies of purchase orders and invoices.
Oštro can confirm that at least the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food, the Slovenian Railways, the motorway company DARS, the national Protocol Service, and the municipalities of Vrhnika, Brežice, Grosuplje, Lendava and Beltinci advertised on disinformation portals during this period.
The ministry paid €24,339 to Nova Hiša for advertising on Nova24tv. According to a copy of the contract provided to Oštro by the ministry, it advertised about forests and forestry in 2021. (Oštro is still waiting for a reply to the question, if the ministry ran ads on the same topic in other media.)
The ministry told Oštro that the media they wanted to advertise in were selected in line with the October 2020 recommendations issued by the then Government Communications Office that stipulated a non-discriminatory approach to the media. The ministry had chosen a provider with national reach, they said.
Now, under the new government, the Government Communications Office told Oštro that these recommendations are no longer implemented, and new ones are being drafted in inter-departmental coordination.
In the analysed period, the Municipality of Grosuplje paid €5,856 to Nova Hiša for advertising on Nova24tv, while DARS paid €1,793 to Iskreni for advertising campaigns. These were carried out on Iskreni and Domovina but the purchase order is unclear about the proportion of advertisement on each portal.
DARS explained that the ads were published between September and December 2021 and aimed to improve road safety and traffic flow on the motorways. They were published in 11 other Slovenian media, including local outlets. None of the 11 were among the portals analysed here.
The Municipality of Lendava paid €1,899 for online advertising in 2021 and 2022 to Villa Sapientiae Beltinci, the publisher of Pomurske Novice. Copies of invoices provided by the municipality to Oštro show that the payments were mainly for the publication of articles on local events in Lendava.
The Municipality of Beltinci also advertised on the same portal, for which it paid €1,600. Judging by the stated purpose on the payment order, two of the payments were for advertising related to the party SDS, one was for an “SDS advertisement” and the other was for “SDS promotional activities”. According to Erar, their total value was only €478.
The municipality briefly replied to our queries saying that, according to the Rules on the Funding of Council Factions and Independent Councillors, councillor groups are allowed to spend money on advertising.
The Slovenian Railways paid €1,891 to Nova Obzorja for advertising on Demokracija. They said they invited the portal's readers to travel by train and presented the advantages of travelling by public transport.
Istrabenz Turizem, a state-owned tourism company, also advertised on this portal. The company confirmed that it had paid €15,700 to Nova Obzorja for advertising but did not provide Oštro with the exact amount for the online ads. It was a business secret.
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The story about online advertising on Slovenian disinformation portals is a part of a project co-financed by EMIF. The fund is co-financed by Google with €25 million for five years, but the corporation is not involved in the decision-making and does not profit from the funded projects.
All content is the sole responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of EMIF or its partners, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the European University Institute.
Oštro produced the story in accordance with its Code of Conduct, which stipulates that editorial staff must proactively disclose any apparent or actual conflicts of interest. Oštro carried out this investigation independently.