Taboola and Outbrain merge in $850 million deal

Taboola and Outbrain, rivals that both operate advertising-based content recommendation engines for publishers that typically appear in the form of boxes at the bottom of online articles, are forming a single company. The merger will result in a customer list that will now number 20,000 online properties and an audience of 2.6 billion to compete better against the likes of Facebook and Google. (TechCrunch)

'First open real-time bidding platform' launches for digital out-of-home

Kubient, a full-stack digital audience marketing platform, is introducing what it says is the first real-time bidding solution for digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising sites. The technology is designed to allow demand-side platforms and other programmatic platforms to bid on DOOH inventory in real time. (Campaign)

DSPs are starting to require App.ads.txt files

After a slowish start, App.ads.txt adoption is surging, but there’s still an enormous longtail of apps that shrug their collective shoulders at the industry spec designed to cut down on app ad fraud. (AdExchanger)

Facebook will pay $40 Million to settle advertiser lawsuits claiming it inflated video views by up to 900%

Facebook has agreed to pay $40 million to settle charges by advertisers it overstated the average amount of time users watched video on the platform. (Fortune)

Zenith updates global ad spend prediction to reach $640 billion in 2019

Despite trade disputes and fears of recession, the ad market has remained strong year-to-date, driving global ad growth. Overall, Zenith is now forecasting that global ad spend will grow by 4.4% this year to reach $640 billion, down slightly from the 4.6% prediction made in June. Growth is expected to remain stable at 4.3% in 2020 and 4.4% in 2021. (MediaPost)