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blinkx defends advertising figures



March 31, 2014

blinkxblinkx has issued a detailed rebuttal to allegations that it used questionable tactics to boost revenues. The company has been fighting to restore its reputation since in January when a Harvard Business School professor published a critical blog post that prompted blinkx’s share price to fall 30 per cent.

Although online advertising revenues are expanding rapidly, investors have become increasingly concerned about deceptive practices in the industry – with many ads “viewed” by robots rather than human beings.

blinkx said that it had found “numerous factual errors in the blog” after conducting a “thorough internal and external review” with Kroll, the risk consulting firm, and DLA Piper, the law firm.

Investors welcomed the announcement, sending blinkx shares up 4.4 per cent to 118p by late morning in London. However the shares are still about a third below their price before the controversy erupted in January.

Benjamin Edelman, the HBS associate professor, said he found Blinkx’s rebuttal “unpersuasive”. He said he had compiled additional evidence of “deceptive” tactics used by Blinkx and would post it to his website in the coming weeks or months, “as time permits”.

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