Home Ad Exchange News Hulu Hangs In The Balance; Verizon Shutters Go90

Hulu Hangs In The Balance; Verizon Shutters Go90

SHARE:

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.

Outlook Hazy

The fate of Hulu depends on the outcome of Comcast’s and Disney’s bidding war for 21st Century Fox. Whoever wins will own a majority stake in Hulu, and both companies have very different visions for the platform’s future. Comcast wants to invest in Hulu’s Live TV bundle to recoup cord cutters and compete in the streaming market, while Disney wants to use Hulu as an adult counterpart to the child-friendly streaming service it’s building to compete with Netflix, reports The Wall Street Journal. Disney most recently topped Comcast with a $71.3 billion bid for 21st Century Fox, but regardless of who wins, the other player will retain a position in Hulu and power on its board.

Ad-Unsupported Content

Verizon is shuttering Go90 at the end of July, three years after it began testing the viability of a free, ad-supported streaming video service. Go90 operations had already been folded into Oath, Variety reports. There’s still plenty of optimism about ad-supported streaming, but subscription-focused players like Netflix and Amazon have gained the most share. Verizon pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into Go90 and pulled all of its (considerable) online distribution levers, without ever coming close to critical mass.

Opt In … Or Else

According to research from the Norwegian Consumer Council, both Google and Facebook trick users into giving up their personal data and discourage them from exercising their rights to data privacy. Google and Facebook, for example, have default settings that secure the maximum possible data from users with a click, while opting out is a multistep process, writes Bloomberg.“From an ethical point of view, we think that service providers should let users choose how personal data is used to serve tailored ads or experiences,” the report said. “Defaulting to the least privacy friendly option is therefore unethical in our opinion, regardless of what the service provider considers legitimate interest.”

But Wait, There’s More!

You’re Hired!

Must Read

A comic depicting Judge Leonie Brinkema's view of the her courtroom where the DOJ vs. Google ad tech antitrust trial is about to begin. (Comic: Court Is In Session)

Your Day One Recap: DOJ vs. Google Goes Deep Into The Ad Tech Weeds

It’s not often one gets to hear sworn witnesses in federal court explain the intricacies of header bidding under oath. But that’s what happened during the first day of the Google ad tech-focused antitrust case in Virginia on Monday.

Comic: What Else? (Google, Jedi Blue, Project Bernanke)

Project Cheat Sheet: A Rundown On All Of Google’s Secret Internal Projects, As Revealed By The DOJ

What do Hercule Poirot, Ben Bernanke, Star Wars and C.S. Lewis have in common? If you’re an ad tech nerd, you’ll know the answer immediately.

shopping cart

The Wonderful Brand Discusses Testing OOH And Online Snack Competition

Wonderful hadn’t done an out-of-home (OOH) marketing push in more than 15 years. That is, until a week ago, when it began a campaign across six major markets to promote its new no-shell pistachio packs.

Privacy! Commerce! Connected TV! Read all about it. Subscribe to AdExchanger Newsletters
Google filed a motion to exclude the testimony of any government witnesses who aren’t economists or antitrust experts during the upcoming ad tech antitrust trial starting on September 9.

Google Is Fighting To Keep Ad Tech Execs Off the Stand In Its Upcoming Antitrust Trial

Google doesn’t want AppNexus founder Brian O’Kelley – you know, the godfather of programmatic – to testify during its ad tech antitrust trial starting on September 9.

How HUMAN Uncovered A Scam Serving 2.5 Billion Ads Per Day To Piracy Sites

Publishers trafficking in pirated movies, TV shows and games sold programmatic ads alongside this stolen content, while using domain cloaking to obscure the “cashout sites” where the ads actually ran.

In 2019, Google moved to a first-price auction and also ceded its last look advantage in AdX, in part because it had to. Most exchanges had already moved to first price.

Thanks To The DOJ, We Now Know What Google Really Thought About Header Bidding

Starting last week and into this week, hundreds of court-filed documents have been unsealed in the lead-up to the Google ad tech antitrust trial – and it’s a bonanza.