Partial content display on mobile devices

Question

I frequently see variations on the following when I'm browsing on mobile devices:

I have two questions regarding the Read More element:

1. What is the official name for this design technique?
2. Why do it? It appears that the full text of the page is loading anyway so it's not a bandwidth saver.

Answer 1

1. This is called an ellipsis. It's a Greek word which essentially means "truncating text."

2. In situations where the entire text of the article is loaded anyway, the primary purpose for the ellipsis is to get their advertiser's ads closer to the top of the screen. And if you accidentally click on the ads when trying to "read more" I'm sure they don't mind.