Apple’s decision to let Taboola handle ads inside Apple News now looks like a mistake. The quality drop feels obvious. What users see today lines up with long-standing complaints about Taboola’s ad network and raises questions about Apple’s growing push into advertising.
In 2024, Apple signed a deal with Taboola to sell and place ads inside Apple News. Taboola is a major ad-tech company with a market value near one billion dollars. It also has a reputation for pushing low-quality and misleading ads across the web.
The news surprised many observers at the time. Apple positions its services as premium and privacy-focused. Taboola’s ads often feel like the opposite.
Shortly after the deal became public, John Gruber of Daring Fireball offered a blunt take. He suggested the partnership would not change much because the ads in Apple News already looked like Taboola content.
“If you told me that the ads in Apple News have been sold by Taboola for the last few years, I’d have said, ‘Oh, that makes sense.’ Because the ads in Apple News already look like chumbox Taboola ads. Even worse, they’re incredibly repetitious.”
At the time, that sounded cynical. Now it sounds accurate.
Ads that look and act like scams
This week, tech writer Kirk McElhearn published a detailed account of what he sees inside Apple News today. His conclusion was as direct as the title.
“I now assume that all ads on Apple News are scams.”
McElhearn uses Apple News to follow topics outside the outlets he already pays for, including The Guardian and The New York Times. He refuses to pay for Apple News+ because it still shows ads despite the high monthly price.
According to McElhearn, those ads have become worse. Many appear to promote fake products. Several use AI-generated images. One even failed to fully hide a Google Gemini watermark.
He also checked the domains behind the ads. Many were registered only weeks or months ago. That detail alone does not prove fraud, but it signals risk. Scam operations often rely on short-lived domains that disappear after complaints pile up.
Fake urgency and recycled tricks
One example McElhearn highlights involves a brand called Tidenox. The ad claims the owner is retiring after 26 years and urges users to buy before the store shuts down. The image shows an elderly woman who appears AI-generated.
The domain behind the ad tells a different story. It was registered in 2025, not decades ago, and traces back to China.
These “going out of business” ads follow a familiar pattern. The Better Business Bureau has warned about them for years. They take money, ship nothing or poor-quality goods, then vanish.
McElhearn does not mince words.
“Does Apple care? Does Taboola care? My guess: no, no, and no.”
A trust problem Apple created
Apple markets Apple News as a premium product. By letting Taboola flood it with low-trust ads, Apple undercuts that message. The company built a honeypot for scam-style advertising inside a service users expect to be safe.
This problem does not look accidental. It looks like the predictable result of prioritizing ad revenue over quality control. If Apple wants users to trust ads in its products again, it needs stricter standards and real enforcement. Right now, Apple News shows what happens when those standards slip.
Throughout my 25+ years on the internet I doubt I’ve ever clicked more than 10 adds. So within the news app I I pay for I’m more upset with the number of ads in the service. To make it worse, they have fully embraced Click-bait to improve their ads metrics.