Amazon Ads stopped displaying in the past 24 hours from January 10, 2022 to January 11, 2022 on Arlingtoncardinal.com and some other websites around the world. CARDINAL NEWS noticed ads were not displaying around 2:00 a.m. Tuesday, January 11, 2022. The issue has caused blank blocks (usually whitespace) to appear on the CARDINAL NEWS website in positions where Amazon ads normally would show products. When functioning normally, a small percentage of readers’ purchases on Amazon referred from a CARDINAL NEWS click referral to Amazon are paid to CARDINAL NEWS at no extra cost to readers. The ads help CARDINAL NEWS fund news operations.
z-na.amazon-adsystem.com is the amazon domain that has an expired SSL certificate. The domain is used in the code that serves amazon ads.
An investigation by CARDINAL NEWS discovered that Amazon apparently allowed a certificate for a domain name that is used in their ad code to expire. Since Arlingtoncardinal.com is a secure website using HTTPS, the website blocks the Amazon ads from appearing. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the Amazon ads were insecure, but a valid certificate is required from all sources — even sources with a good reputation.
The certificate expired on Monday, January 10, 2022 at 5:59:59 PM Central Standard Time.
Any time a graphic or other type of computer code is embedded in a website that uses HTTPS, that embedded computer code must also originate from a server that is also using HTTPS with a legitimate certificate.
HTTPS is known as “Hypertext transfer protocol secure” and is the secure version of HTTP, which is the primary protocol used to send data between a web browser and a website. HTTPS is encrypted in order to increase security of data transfer. Encryption is particularly important when users transmit sensitive data, while logging into a bank account, using email service, interacting with a health insurance provider, or making a purchase online.
When the Arlingtoncardinal.com website detects code that does not use HTTPS (e.g., HTTP instead), or detects code that has an expired certificate, that section is blocked from view for the security of readers.
If the issue from Amazon is prolonged, CARDINAL NEWS will temporarily delete the section or replace the section with other ads or information.
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