Chitika

Chitika, Inc.

Company type	Private
Industry	Internet advertising
Founded	Shrewsbury, Massachusetts (May, 2003)
Headquarters	Westborough, Massachusetts , USA
Key people	Venkat Kolluri, Co-Founder, CEO Alden DoRosario, Co-Founder, CTO
Products	Chitika Premium
Website	chitika.com

Chitika, Inc. (pronounced CHIH-tih-ka) is a search-targeted advertising company. It is located in Westborough, Massachusetts. The name Chitika means "in a snap" in the South Indian language of Telugu.

Partnerships

In 2010 Yahoo! closed their AdSense competitor Yahoo Publisher Network Online (YPNO) and recommended publishers migrate to Chitika as a replacement.

In 2009 Chitika began a partnership with the b5media Network.

Awards and recognition

• 2010
  • DPAC Award Finalist for Best Mobile Advertising Network Innovation

• 2009
  • Red Herring: Top 100 Global 2008 Finalist
  • Red Herring: Top 100 Global 2008 Winner
    Past award winners include: Google, Yahoo!, Skype, Netscape, Salesforce.com, and YouTube

• 2008
  • AlwaysOn: Top 100 fastest-growing companies in the Northeast
  • Red Herring: Leading private technology companies in North America
  • MITX 2008 Technology Awards: Finalist, Marketing/Customer Relationship Technologies Category

• 2007
  • Inc. top free services for generating revenue on your website: Best For Promoting Ancillary Products

Controversies

In December 2005, some publishers reported a reduction in revenue after auditing between 25%-90%.

In November 2007, Jennifer Slegg, owner of the JenSense Blog, reported a payment mishap.

"When my check arrived at the end of September, my bank would not accept it. Why? Because they had also printed someone else’s check on the back of mine… complete with their name and earning amount (no, I am not going to say whose check I received printed on the back of mine). But whoever did the Chitika checks thought it would be fine to just simply use a pen and cross out the other check printed on the back of my check and then send it off to me. Well, funny, but banks don’t seem to like a second check printed and scratched out on the back of a check I am trying to deposit!"

In June 2008, Chitika reportedly changed its revenue payout without notifying publishers or responding to their complaints.

In 2010, Chitika removed their ads from thousands of websites. The company stated that the sites they had been doing business with were all suddenly placed under "Pending Review" or "Pending Further Review" status. This meant the company would no longer show ads on the sites. Many dropped the advertising service.

On March 16, 2011, the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") appeared before the United States Senate Commerce Committee and announced its first behavioral advertising case, filed against Chitika for use of a deceptive opt-out mechanism. According to the FTC, Chitika's cookies that opt users out of behavioral tracking were expiring in ten days rather than the stated ten years. A settlement was reached under which Chitika was forbidden from making misleading statements about the extent of data collection about consumers and the extent to which consumers can control the use of their data. Further, the settlement required that Chitika link all its advertising to an effective opt-out mechanism in future. It has been commented that, “[t]his requirement of a hyperlink embedded in online advertisements is a good indicator of the type of Do Not Track mechanism that will be acceptable to the FTC if “Do Not Track” becomes mandatory.” According to a press release by the company, their opt-out cookies have been set to ten years since March 2010 when the FTC began their investigation. Chitika subsequently claimed to have made only a total of fifty-five cents from the ten day opt-out expiration.