The company formerly known as Shine has sunsetted its name, leaving behind a Rainbow.
And it’s not in the business of blocking ads at a network level, as many thought. It’s now screening ads for user experience at a network level.
Based in Tel Aviv, the startup Shine gained recognition a year ago because it was slated to provide ad blocking at a network level for mobile carrier Three in the UK and Italy.
As the announcement by the carrier stated at the time: “Three UK and Three Italy have successfully collaborated with Shine Technologies on implementing Shine’s ad blocking technologies in their networks.”
Three added that this ad blocking service prevented customers from paying for data costs to receive ads, and it more fully protected privacy and secrecy.
But, Shine CRO James Collier told me, his company never really provided the ad blocking.
We “never fully deployed network level ad blocking” for Three, he said. Instead, he said, when it installed anti-malware software at the network level, it “identified fraud by advertisers.” The goal was a better consumer experience.
But, CMO Roi Carthy acknowledged, Shine had deployed ad blocking for carrier Digicel in the Caribbean.
In any case, Shine has decided to change its name to Rainbow, and to change its service from not-really-ad-blocking to ad filtering. (The press announcement from Shine/Rainbow announcing these changes notes that it is “no longer selling ad blocking to mobile carriers,” indicating that it once did.)
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