“Today, we’re going to talk about building a privacy-focused social platform,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg declared, with only a mild sense of irony, as he kicked off the F8 developer conference in San Jose on Tuesday morning. One would be forgiven for wondering if Facebook is even capable of such a pivot, and Zuckerberg recognized […]
With its $4.4 billion acquisition of Epsilon/Conversant, Publicis Groupe becomes a data controller – and that ups the regulatory ante under the General Data Protection Regulation and, likely, any other privacy legislation that comes down the pike. Controllers, in GDPR parlance, determine how and why personal data is processed. Controllers are also required to establish a […]
Johnny Ryan, chief policy and industry officer at Brave, filed a complaint late Tuesday with the Irish data protection commission arguing that the cookie wall on IAB Europe’s website is “illegal” under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The IAB Europe’s site gives visitors three options: agree to the use of cookies and third-party tracking; […]
Looking for AddThis audience data in the EU? You won’t find it. Oracle Data Cloud has quietly pulled the plug on that business line. Although Oracle declined to say exactly when it began shutting down AddThis, the process started at some point in the last number of months. Under the General Data Protection Regulation, unconsented […]
Mark Zuckerberg penned a lengthy post last week laying out Facebook’s vision for a “privacy-focused” future – but it’s not going to change Facebook’s business model. Although Zuckerberg expends a lot of ink on the importance of data security and protecting messaging with end-to-end encryption, he doesn’t mention the interest and user-related data that powers Facebook’s […]
As the specter of California’s Consumer Privacy Act looms over the tech world, many industry giants and trade groups have assumed a new role as collective cheerleader for broad federal privacy legislation. It wasn’t all that long ago that tech companies balked at the idea, but many have changed their tune. That has some Democrats […]
Attention: Attorney General, State of California Re: California Consumer Privacy Act You’re killing us here. Thanks, The advertising industry The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is set to take effect in 2020 and the advertising community is desperate for some clarification. On Tuesday, a coalition of ad trade orgs sent a joint letter to the […]
GDPR grievances are spreading like cumulus clouds across Europe. Next stop: Poland. On Monday, the Panoptykon Foundation, a digital rights watchdog in Poland, filed a complaint to the Polish Data Protection Authority (Urząd Ochrony Danych Osobowych or UODO), arguing that data used by Google and other ad tech vendors violates the General Data Protection Regulation […]
Google got dinged by France’s data protection watchdog on Monday for failing to properly collect user consent under the General Data Protection Regulation. It was only a scratch but the ruling could signal a rough road ahead for the industry’s consent framework. The 50 million euro fine levied by the CNIL (the Commission nationale de […]
France’s data protection authority issued a 50 million euro fine against Google on Monday for failing to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation. Not only was Google found not to have the proper consents in place from its users to collect and process data for personalization and ad targeting, it may not even have […]
An American associate professor of media design is perhaps not the first person who comes to mind as the driving force behind an effort to test the limits of European data protection law, but there you go. David Carroll, who teaches at the New School’s Parsons School of Design in New York City, is partway […]
California is gearing up to be a privacy battleground in 2019. On Thursday, the city attorney for Los Angeles filed a lawsuit accusing The Weather Channel app and its parent company IBM, of duping users into providing permission to collect geolocation data without explaining exactly how that data would be used, aka, not just for […]
Freight trains take time to build steam. That’s your metaphor for what’s to come in 2019 for the General Data Protection Regulation. “I think people were expecting a massive fine on Day One,” said Forrester principal analyst Fatemeh Khatibloo, “[but] these investigations take time.” Data protection authorities (DPAs) across Europe have their hands full fielding […]
The unlikeliest folks are pushing to pass broad privacy regulations these days. On Wednesday, the Association of National Advertisers, the largest ad trade org out there, urged the Federal Trade Commission to advocate for a national privacy law that preempts the regional laws cropping up all over the country. The FTC is collecting comments in […]
2018 was the year Facebook’s skeletons really came skittering out of the closet, and the drip, drip, drip of bad news is seemingly endless. On Tuesday, the New York Times reported that Facebook shared more data with more partners than previously disclosed, including contact information, private messages and friend lists. Facebook’s response to the Times […]
Federal Trade Commission Chair Joseph Simons is in favor of a national privacy regime – but beware the potential unintended consequences, he said. “Depending on how you do privacy legislation, you could have an adverse impact on competition, potentially by entrenching the major digital platforms,” Simons told lawmakers during a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on antitrust […]
Facebook is setting up a kiosk in midtown Manhattan to dole out free hot cocoa and privacy advice. (Yes, privacy advice.) At a one-day public pop-up event Thursday in Bryant Park, Facebook reps will answer questions about how people can use their privacy settings and manage their advertising experience on the platform. The event, a […]
There’s no point passing a comprehensive federal privacy legislation if the main enforcement agency doesn’t have the means to hold feet to the fire. On Tuesday, all five commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission appeared before the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection in Washington, D.C., to make an appeal for more resources. “Section 5 is […]
Privacy advocates in the UK filed a series of complaints Thursday against Criteo, Tapad, Quantcast, Acxiom, Oracle, Equifax and Experian, questioning whether consumer profiling is legal under GDPR. Watchdog group Privacy International is claiming that the way many ad tech and data companies use data is in direct contravention to Europe’s new privacy law. The […]
There is life after a GDPR enforcement warning. Location data ad tech startup Teemo, one of the first companies admonished under the General Data Protection Regulation for gathering and processing data without informed consent, was given the all clear on Thursday. Teemo, headquartered in Paris, received an ultimatum from France’s data protection authority, the Commission […]
When the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect in May, Nestlé Germany was ready. Germany’s data collection laws have been notoriously austere for decades, much to the chagrin of some digital players. National laws – such as the Federal Data Protection Act, the Criminal Code, the Civil Code, the Telecommunications Act and Telemedia Act […]
What’s a good, succinct way to describe the current US system of data security and privacy regulation? “It’s a mess,” said Daniel Solove, a professor of law at George Washington University. That’s why the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is hosting a series of hearings from mid-September through November to help it rethink its approach to […]
Some apps don’t seem to be taking GDPR seriously – or maybe just don’t realize how much they’re leaving themselves exposed. Although mobile apps aren’t necessarily more at risk of GDPR violations, they do have specific and nuanced tasks they must complete in order to comply, and many are noticeably behind. Mobile apps that rely on […]
Bonjour, GDPR enforcement. Google and Facebook may have bullseyes on their backs in Europe, but it’s two mid-sized French startups that received the first warning shots from the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – and that shouldn’t be surprising. “GDPR is not just there for the big guys,” said Ronan Tigner, an associate at Morrison […]
The Trump administration’s Commerce Department is in talks with tech and internet providers, including Facebook, Google, AT&T and Comcast, to craft a proposal addressing online privacy. The Washington Post reported the news Friday. Why now? The administration is succumbing to pressure amid global criticism that a lack of online privacy regulation led to foreign meddling […]
Google was hit with a $5.1 billion fine by the European Union on Wednesday for antitrust practices around the Android mobile operating system – a move that underscores Europe’s willingness to issue steep financial penalties for bad behavior. And there’s another bludgeon in the EU’s cache that Google – and the advertising world in general […]
While both the California Consumer Privacy Act and Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation address the collection of personal information by businesses, they are actually quite different. Here’s where they diverge and why the advertising trade orgs are lobbying like bandits to block the California act’s passage. The IAB, DMA, ANA, 4As and NAI decried the […]
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) may have originated in Europe, but its reach and influence stretches across the globe, including to the US. For example, it’s actually easier for large enterprises to apply standards globally. Having already made a major effort to comply with GDPR for EU citizen data, it’s only logical to stay […]
May 25 is here and let’s pretend that companies up and down the digital supply chain are ready for the General Data Protection Regulation enforcement deadline. Good. Now it’s time to start fretting about ePrivacy. Many in the advertising industry have treated ePrivacy almost as an afterthought in the frenzied lead-up to the GDPR enforcement […]
Data matching and cookie syncing aren’t verboten under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) but getting the consent to do it is another story altogether, since consumers need to know exactly what they’re signing up for when they provide unambiguous and specific consent. Like most vendors in the ad tech ecosystem, companies that onboard data […]
