I now assume that all ads on Apple news are scams

In 2024, Apple signed a deal with Taboola to serve ads in its app, notably Apple News. John Gruber, writing in Daring Fireball said at the time:

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 — at least the ones I see1 — already look like chumbox Taboola ads. Even worse, they’re incredibly repetitious.

I use Apple News to keep up on topics that I don’t find in sources I pay for (The Guardian and The New York Times). But there’s no way I’m going to pay the exorbitant price Apple wants for Apple News+ – £13 – because, while you get more publications, you still get ads.

And those ads have gotten worse recently. Many if not most of them look like and probably are scams. Here are a few examples from Apple News today.

Here are three ads that are scammy; the first two were clearly generated by AI, and the third may have been created by AI.

Why are they scams? When I searched domain information for the domains, I found that they were registered very recently.

Domain Name: MUSTYLEVO.COM

Domain Name: SOLVERACO.COM

Domain Name: SHIYAATELIER.COM

This recent registration doesn’t necessarily mean they are scams, but they don’t inspire much confidence.

Here’s one example. This ad from Tidenox, whose website says I am retiring, showing a photo of an elderly woman, who says, “For 26 years, Tidenox has been port of your journey in creating earth and comfort at home.” The image of the retiring owner is probably made by AI. (Update: someone on Hacker News pointed out the partly masked Google Gemini logo on the bottom right. I hadn’t spotted that, in part because I don’t use any AI image generation tools.)

These fake “going out of business ads” have been around for a few years, and even the US Better Business Bureau warns about them, as they take peoples’ money then shut down. Does Apple care? Does Taboola care? Does Apple care that Taboola serves ads like this? My guess: no, no, and no.

Note the registration date for the tidenox.com domain. It’s nowhere near 26 years old, and it’s registered in China:

Domain Name: TIDENOX.COM

Shame on Apple for creating a honeypot for scam ads in what they consider to be a premium news service. This company cannot be trusted with ads in its products any more.