Anyone hoping for an intense grilling of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during his testimony Tuesday before European politicians in Brussels can keep on waiting. Zuckerberg trotted out familiar talking points and was sheltered from the intensity and awkward eye contact of real interrogation by a strange format, in which members of the EU Parliament asked […]
Facebook’s CTO, Mike Schroepfer, faced five hours of intense and technically savvy grilling by members of a parliamentary committee on Thursday. The takeaway: UK regulators don’t trust Facebook. To put it more pointedly in the words of British conservative MP Julian Knight: Facebook is a “morality-free zone” with no respect for consumer privacy or the […]
While some ad tech and data companies are shuttering their EU operations in light of the upcoming GDPR, others are investing in new but unproven technologies like blockchain to preserve their data-centric business models. When GDPR takes effect in about one month, companies with personal data will need to gain explicit consent from EU citizens […]
Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will kill the third-party data ecosystem. Or third-party data isn’t going anywhere. The truth sits somewhere in the middle, said Alice Lincoln, MediaMath’s VP of data policy and governance, at AdExchanger’s Programmatic I/O in San Francisco on Wednesday. “Third-party data is here to stay – if it’s high-quality,” said Lincoln, […]
With Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation taking effect May 25, Facebook must alter some of its business practices regardless of any fallout due to the Cambridge Analytica debacle. The Cambridge Analytica revelations merely behoove Facebook to move faster and fix things in light of macro privacy changes hitting the EU. The most recent example is […]
All eyes have been on Google as May 25 draws near. That’s the day the General Data Protection Regulation goes into effect in Europe, where Google has a target on its back. Google laid out its GDPR prep plan Thursday in a letter to partners after months of playing its cards close to the vest. […]
For mar tech companies, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) preparation starts by acknowledging that they handle personal data. Many will insist it’s all de-identified and anonymized, said Omer Tene, VP and chief knowledge officer at the International Association of Privacy Professionals. “But drill a bit deeper and you’ll find that while they might not have […]
Forrester principal analyst Fatemeh Khatibloo will speak at AdExchanger’s upcoming Industry Preview conference on Jan. 17-18, 2018 at the Grand Hyatt New York. If marketers and publishers don’t know how many third-party tags lurk on their sites, Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which takes effect in May, will change that. “A client will tell […]
With Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) set to take effect in a few short months, smart publishers are leaving nothing to chance. Everyone in the supply chain could be held accountable if they aren’t compliant by May 25, and stakeholders at every level are in a frenzy to renegotiate contracts that protect themselves in […]
The May deadline to comply with Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is swiftly approaching, and ad tech and security startups are forming a new industry: privacy tech. Companies like PageFair, Evidon, Prifender, Tealium and Segment hope to capitalize with GDPR compliance solutions for brands, publishers and even other ad tech vendors. The International Association […]
The digital media supply chain is about to get a whole lot smaller thanks to Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The privacy legislation, which takes effect in May, dictates that data controllers could be held responsible for data privacy missteps made by their third-party partners. Marketers and publishers are therefore highly incentivized to run […]
The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a looming reality set to take effect on May 25, 2018 – and the digital advertising industry is just starting to get woke. But misconceptions about the regulation are pervasive. And despite the substantial amount of work that companies need to do in order to prepare for and […]
Winter is coming – for companies that aren’t taking the new EU privacy regime seriously. Ad tech players are particularly vulnerable, said Todd Ruback, chief privacy officer at digital governance company Evidon, which sold its consumer-facing privacy extension, Ghostery, in February in order to dedicate itself to enterprise compliance. “The ad tech industry is the weak […]
Kelly Liyakasa contributed The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will become law in May 2018. Think it won’t affect you? Think again. “This kind of legislation impacts every company in the world,” said Acxiom CEO Scott Howe. “Very few companies aren’t collecting or utilizing information to improve their decision making.” But how the […]
Stick a fork in the Federal Communication Commission’s Obama-era privacy rules. As promised, President Trump signed a bill Monday to repeal the ISP privacy regulation passed last year under former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. The repeal follows Republican-led Senate and House votes to kill the regs in late March. The rules would have required broadband […]
The Republican-led House voted Tuesday to kill the Federal Communication Commission’s ISP privacy rules. All it needs now is the president’s signature, and that is all but assured. The White House issued a statement earlier in the day to say that President Trump strongly supports repealing the rules. Ad trade orgs rejoice. The House’s decision […]
The other shoe has dropped: Newly minted Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai on Friday moved to block the implementation of the ISP privacy rules passed under former Commissioner Tom Wheeler. Pai was acting on a request by trade groups to stay the rule rollout, which was scheduled to take effect March 2. “All […]
The ad tech ecosystem keeps Jessica Rich up at night. “The current models just aren’t working,” said Rich, who until recently sat on the front lines of advertising regulation and enforcement as director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. Rich resigned her post last week after a 26-year career at the commission […]
There’s a new top cop on the advertising regulation beat. Attorney Thomas Pahl will fill Jessica Rich’s shoes as acting director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. Acting FTC Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen named Pahl to his new post on Wednesday, the day after it was announced Rich would be stepping down. Pahl […]
The sea change at the Federal Trade Commission continues. On Tuesday, Jessica Rich, the FTC’s director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, exited the commission after 26 years of service. Rich led the bureau since 2013, when she was appointed by then-FTC Chair Edith Ramirez. The announcement comes on the heels of Ramirez’s planned departure […]
Digital captured 72 cents of every new ad dollar in 2016, compared with TV’s 21 cents, according to GroupM’s Interaction report. In 2017, the report estimated, the ratio will be 77:17. But as digital becomes ubiquitous, so do concerns around data and compliance in a totally connected world. 2016 “was an alarming year for the […]
The Federal Trade Commission’s cross-device report has few practical recommendations on what consumers can do to navigate the tangled web of cross-device privacy controls – or the lack thereof. Although the staff report, issued Monday, is a notable public statement on the space, it cleaves to the commission’s historical party line on tracking. [Read the full […]
As of Monday, the Federal Communications Commission has a new chairman: Republican Ajit Pai. Pai replaces Democrat Tom Wheeler, who stepped down on Jan. 20, inauguration day. The newly appointed chairman is far from supportive of most of his predecessor’s policies, including the recently passed broadband privacy regs and net neutrality. Pai famously stated in […]
The agenda at this year’s PrivacyCon read like the Federal Trade Commission’s to-do list. Nearly 20 researchers from around the country converged on Washington, DC, Friday to dig into the privacy implications of the Internet of Things and big data, mobile privacy, consumer privacy expectations, online behavioral advertising, information security, the dangers of cross-app tracking […]
Turn is settling with the Federal Trade Commission for its part in the Verizon zombie cookie debacle. It’s been nearly two years since it was first revealed that the demand-side platform was using Verizon’s unique identifier header (UIDH) for tracking purposes even if a user had opted out of being tracked. On Tuesday, the FTC […]
When Maneesha Mithal first joined the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection in 1999 – eight years before the first iPhone came out – the big issues of the day were how to regulate ecommerce and handle spam. The threat vectors have changed. The FTC’s top three priorities in 2017 will be Internet of Things […]
As the clock ticks down to President-elect Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, the future of regulatory agencies like the Federal Communications Commission is uncertain. But one thing is clear: Enforcement will continue. “The overwhelming majority of the work we do is bipartisan,” Travis LeBlanc, the FCC’s enforcement bureau chief, said last week at an International Association […]
The Verizon/AOL vision is starting to take shape, and it looks a whole lot like Facebook Custom Audiences. But there’s a FCC-shaped question mark looming over the endeavor. The Federal Communications Commission passed sweeping online privacy regulations in October that will require internet service providers to obtain an affirmative opt-in consent before using a customer’s […]
All the notice in the world doesn’t mean anything if the consumer doesn’t see it. It’s not yet apparent what the Federal Communications Commission’s recently passed privacy regulations will look like in practice. Internet service providers (ISPs) could potentially phone in their compliance to the newly imposed strictures with an updated user agreement or cleverly […]
“We generally may share information we collect on the site with certain service providers, some of whom may use the information for their own purposes as necessary.” That’s a nearly verbatim quote from a real privacy policy. (Emphases added.) “Vagueness impacts the consumer’s understanding of risk and their willingness to share information,” said Fordham University […]
