The Bureau of Meteorology (aka BOM) is one of the most-visited sites in Australia, so this isn’t altogether surprising: the government is going to begin a trial of featuring advertising on it. We’ll dive right in and suggest it would be a bad idea for Coles to tie its ‘Down Down’ campaign to cyclone warnings.
The government will provide $300,000 to fund the trial, ABC Rural reports. The aim of the exercise is to provide more funds so the Bureau can hire additional meteorologists and respond better to extreme weather events. That seems fair enough, I guess, and virtually every weather site and app in the world will benefit, since they all use the data that BOM provides. The trial will run for one year, and there will apparently be “strict guidelines” controlling what ads appear — which if nothing else means we shouldn’t see that terrible “facelift secrets” ad that pops up all over the web. [ABC]
Picture: Kevin Utting