Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
Matching The Search User
Google will widen support for first-party data onboarding, Digiday’s Garett Sloane reports. “The new program lets advertisers import their customer lists to Google and market to those audiences in Gmail, search and YouTube.” It’s a move straight out of the playbooks of many other Internet companies, including Facebook. How well can CRM demand compete with keyword intent in the Google auction? More.
Cookie Exploit
If you thought cookies had a bad rap before, Carnegie Mellon’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) issued a warning stating that “cookies set via HTTP requests may allow a remote attacker to bypass HTTPS and reveal private session information.” Read it here. Because it’s impossible to tell how a cookie was set, it can be used to infiltrate sibling domains. Here’s CERT’s hypothetical: Consider two domains: foo.example.com and bar.example.com. (FUBAR! Get it?) The server for foo.example.com might set a cookie for “example.com.” Consequently, that cookie can be used to access the private sessions within bar.example.com, even if it uses HTTPS. That’s an issue that even affects ostensibly secure sites like Google and Bank of America. The Stack has some additional analysis.
Your Daily Ad Block
Addressing a lamentable lack of stories on ad blocking, The Guardian’s John Naughton contemplates the topic and wonders what comes next. “The good news is that the ensuing crisis will compel us finally to look for what we should have invented decades ago, namely sustainable business models for the web. For example, it’s possible that cryptocurrencies might enable the ‘micro-payments’ that would make users to pay a tiny amount for any article they read.” More.
Please, Please, Do No Evil
Google parent Alphabet just poached the lauded director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Thomas Insel. As noted in Insel’s interview with Antonio Regalado of the MIT Technology Review, there are clear incentives for tech companies to enter the stagnant healthcare industry (which is 20% of US GDP). Life sciences may be separated from Google within Alphabet, but there are echoes of the marketing titan behind Insel’s description of his mandate, “To get the right treatments at the right time for the right people.” Read on.
You’re Hired
- AppThis Adds Hires Finn Faldi – AppThis blog
- VideoAmp Hires Amy McGovern To Run US Sales – press release
- MDC Taps Mediacom’s New-Business Vet Khartoon Weiss – Ad Age
But Wait, There’s More!
- Square IPO Filing Expected Soon – Fortune
- Sociomantic Releases In-App Ad Suite – press release
- TV Trade Group Makes Case For Political Ad Spend – WSJ
- Amazon Readies Etsy-Killer – TheStreet
- Mozilla Seeks Testers For ‘Private Browsing’ In Firefox – blog post
- Google Faces Android Antitrust Scrutiny – Bloomberg
- Digital Marketing Software Player Wayin Raises $15.4 Million – press release
- Ad Blocking Is Not Going To Stop Google’s Momentum – Seeking Alpha
- Mobile Browser Traffic Is 2X Bigger Than App Traffic, And Growing Faster – VentureBeat
- Open Letter On The Digital Economy
- Rubicon Patents Idea That Might Make People Click More Ads – Business insider
- Are Video Games The New Cable TV? – Adweek
