Big ad sales on the high seas of online piracy

Molly Wood May 23, 2013
HTML EMBED:
COPY

Big ad sales on the high seas of online piracy

Molly Wood May 23, 2013
HTML EMBED:
COPY

Most businesses would be pretty excited if they could boast advertisements on their webiste could be viewed five billion times each month. That’s the exposure promised by the company BitTorrent. The ads appear on its downloadable software called UTorrent.

But there’s a catch. BitTorrent is best known as a way for people to illegally share and download content. It’s a dicey marketplace even for a brand that wants exposure. Still, does the promise of money trump fears of selling goods to law-breakers?

Greg Sandoval at tech news website The Verge joins Marketplace Tech host Ben Johnson to share his take. 

There’s a lot happening in the world.  Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. 

You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible. 

Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.