Dive Brief: 

• The National Advertising Division has issued a recommendation to the creators of "recommendation widgets" — which populate story links at the bottom of articles on many sites — to clearly label those stories as native ads. 
• The NAD particularly focused on Taboola, a leader in recommended stories, because it receives payment for each story clicked. This meets the NAD's classification for a native ad. 
• One of Taboola's competitors filed a complaint with the NAD claiming that the widget's labeling is too vague, and the NAD suggested Taboola make its "sponsored content" or "promoted content" labels bolder and more visible. 

Dive Insight: 

The recommendations from NAD are another part of the ongoing process for the ad industry to define what native advertising includes. Clearly, Taboola is benefiting financially from the content, so it's not unreasonable to require full disclosure — especially for those links that lead to promotional content.