The Telegraph can disclose that in July last year Apple bought wraparound advertising on The Guardian's website and stipulated that the advertising should not be placed next to negative news.
That's fair enough, I reckon. I've no idea what 'wraparound advertising' is in the context of a website, but I think if a company are spending big then it's perfectly entitled to request that its ads aren't placed next to stories about pædophile rings etc etc (although personally I can't see the problem; let's face it, 90% of the big news stories with the most views are
bad news stories). As the Guardian spokesman is quoted as saying: "Apple, in common with other advertisers, sometimes choose to make stipulations about the type of content their ads appear around. If the content on the home page does not meet stipulations, the ad would be removed."
A Guardian insider said that the headline of an article about Iraq on The Guardian's website was changed amid concerns about offending Apple, and the article was later removed from the home page entirely.
This is where it gets a bit weird. If the headline was
Iraq Insurgents Execute Six Schoolgirls Using iPhone App then I can understand why Apple might be offended, but I'm assuming that this
wasn't the headline.
I can't actually think of the headline that would cause the website's staff to worry about causing offence to Apple; it's even harder to imagine that the entire story was pulled because of some Apple-related concern.
Given that the Telegraph doesn't state what the story/headline is, I reckon this is a load of old bollocks and an attempt to divert attention from the Telegraph's own recent negative publicity following Peter Oborne's article on the paper's editorial/commercial conflicts (edit: as OllyW says).
The Go Ultra Low Group 'unmarked advertorials' looks to be the bigger story at first glance.
