Outbrain: What It Is and Privacy Implications
Outbrain is a native advertising platform that tracks browsing data to show recommendations. Learn why ad blockers target it.
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What Is Outbrain?
Outbrain is a native advertising platform founded in 2006 by Yaron Galai and Ori Lahav, headquartered in New York City. It became known for displaying chumboxes—boxes of links—at the end of articles on partner sites, recommending sponsored content or internal links. In June 2024, Outbrain announced a merger with Teads, and in 2025 the combined entity was renamed Teads Holding Co.
How It Works
Outbrain acts as an intermediary between advertisers and website publishers. Advertisers pay on a pay-per-click basis, and Outbrain shares approximately 75% of that revenue with the site displaying the links. In 2020, the platform delivered an average of 10 billion recommendations daily for over 20,000 advertisers across more than 108,000 sites.
Browsing Data Collection
To target ads, Outbrain collects browsing data from users, including visited pages, clicks, interests, and approximate location. This data is used to display relevant ads, raising privacy concerns. Although the company claims to use machine learning to improve recommendation quality, it has been criticized for low-quality content and tracking users without explicit consent.
Why Ad Blockers Block Outbrain
Privacy tools and ad blockers block Outbrain for several reasons. First, it tracks user browsing without clear authorization. Second, it displays intrusive ads that consume data and may lead to malicious sites. Third, it uses profiling techniques that violate privacy. Blockers like uBlock Origin and AdBlock Plus include filter lists that block the outbrain.com domain and its variations.
Limitations of DNS Blocking
Blocking Outbrain via DNS (e.g., Pi-hole or NextDNS) prevents the browser from connecting to the server, but has limitations. It does not remove ads served from the same address as content, does not hide your IP address, and may break apps that rely on Outbrain’s script. Additionally, sites can detect the block and require users to disable it.
Alternatives
For better privacy, use browser-level content blockers or specific extensions. The hago99 tool can help manage these settings but does not solve all tracking issues.
Conclusion
Outbrain exemplifies how native advertising can compromise user privacy by tracking browsing. Blocking it reduces exposure to unwanted ads, but understanding the limits of DNS blocking is important. The decision to block depends on the user’s tolerance for tracking.