Taboola and Outbrain, best known as the rival chumbox providers who fill space on your favorite websites with garbage like “You Won’t Believe What [NAME] Looks Like Today!” and the ever-popular “1 Weird Trick,” will apparently not be merging into the ultimate source of low-quality web filler we’d feared ever since the Department of Justice saw fit to put its stamp of approval on the deal.
CNBC, The Wall Street Journal and TechCrunch are all reporting that the merger, first announced in October 2019, is being called off, after an attempt to renegotiate changing conditions due to the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t result in a new agreement.
What a shame!
If you’re curious what a chumbox looks like, you won’t have to look far. (Vox Media is not immune to the allure of money, after all.) You can find a chumbox at the bottom of this post, right above the comments.
