Apple has long marketed itself as a company that prioritizes trust, privacy, and a premium user experience. That’s why many readers are frustrated to see what’s happening inside Apple News lately: a growing wave of low-quality, suspicious, and scam-like ads that feel completely out of place on an Apple platform.
A major reason behind the shift traces back to Apple’s 2024 partnership with Taboola, one of the world’s biggest ad-tech firms, brought in to deliver “native” advertising across Apple News and the Apple Stocks app. Since then, complaints about ad quality have only become louder, with many users saying the advertisements they see are getting worse by the day.
Veteran Apple-focused journalist Kirk McElhearn recently summed up the mood with a blunt conclusion: he now assumes all ads on Apple News are scams. His argument isn’t just about annoying marketing—it’s about ads that look untrustworthy on sight, often appearing sloppy, auto-generated, and designed to push readers into questionable purchases.
One example he highlights involves an ad from a brand called Tidenox featuring an AI-generated image of an elderly woman, complete with a visible Google Gemini logo in the image itself. The ad uses a familiar scam template: a supposed business “shutting down” and offering massive discounts to clear inventory. The pitch is meant to trigger urgency and impulse buying. According to the criticism, people who fall for offers like these may place orders and then never receive anything.
Another red flag: several of the advertised domains appear to be newly registered—sometimes as recently as the prior month. Newly created domains aren’t automatically malicious, but in the context of aggressive discount claims and sketchy branding, it’s a common hallmark of short-lived scam operations that pop up, take payments, and vanish.
Adding to the frustration is how Apple News+ works. Unlike many subscription services where paying removes ads entirely, Apple News+ does not eliminate advertising. The subscription primarily removes paywalls from participating publishers, but ads remain part of the experience—meaning even paying users can still find themselves sorting through questionable promotions.
The situation raises an uncomfortable question for Apple’s reputation: even if the company isn’t legally required to thoroughly vet every advertisement, does it have a moral responsibility to protect users from deceptive ad experiences on its own apps? Critics argue that Apple’s brand promise implies at least a serious attempt at screening, especially when ads appear scammy, AI-generated, or linked to newly created domains with dubious claims.
For now, users are left dealing with the flood of clickbait-style and scam-like Apple News ads, while the larger debate continues: how much responsibility should a platform owner take for the quality and trustworthiness of the advertising it distributes?
