FTC U L8R
One priority for Republicans once Donald Trump is back in the White House is to reduce regulation and, specifically, to replace FTC Chair Lina Khan.
Khan became a hot-button topic during the campaign run-up, and the Trump team targeted her for early replacement, the Times reported before the election.
But Khan’s political maelstrom has major second-order effects for digital advertising.
For one thing, M&A will likely increase with the change, Adweek writes. The FTC and the new administration will be less inclined to block deals or regulate AI and other business practices.
Also, specific deals hang in the balance, the fates of which have huge ramifications for retail media in particular. The Kroger and Albertsons merger, for one, was challenged by the FTC earlier this year, but the suit hasn’t been finalized. Walmart’s acquisition of the TV manufacturer Vizio is another one.
Big Tech, media and retail companies have been frustrated with regulatory challenges under Khan. Adobe abandoned its $20 billion would-be acquisition of Figma. Visa and Plaid’s $5 billion deal, nope. Amazon’s proposed acquisition of Roomba-maker iRobot? Unproposed.
Some “strategics,” as they say, will be eager to lock in a deal or two if there’s an amenable FTC.
Bing! It’s Ready
Microsoft Bing has a new claim to relevance. Lol.
But, seriously, ChatGPT made Bing “something SEO managers need to examine in ways they probably never have,” according to a Search Engine Land story.
On Halloween, ChatGPT announced its web search engine – called ChatGPT Search – which uses Bing’s index. Microsoft and OpenAI, the ChatGPT parent company, have a deeply entangled relationship.
The sky isn’t falling for SEOs who have been remiss with Bing. But it can’t be written off, either.
ChatGPT Search does have its own algorithm, but it doesn’t care about Bing’s ranking of your site. So if you’ve been negligent with Bing and aren’t indexed there, ChatGPT could miss your content altogether and not have the chance to apply its own algorithm.
The updates aren’t difficult for an SEO pro. As long as you remember your Bing Webmaster Tools password.
Block and Delete
Advertisers are bullish on the idea of one-to-one personalization – but like any tool that relies on user data, it can be used for evil just as easily as for good.
Case in point: In the days immediately following the presidential election, Black people across 17 different states started receiving racist text messages on their phone, CBS News reports.
Most refer to the recipient “being selected” to perform slave labor at “the nearest plantation,” and many purport to be from Trump supporters. Some even called the recipients out by their full name.
So far the primary targets appear to be college students, although some children as young as 13 have reported receiving the messages as well, according to USA Today.
It’s unclear who or how many perpetrators are responsible, although the FBI is currently investigating. Given how widespread the messages are, however, it’s likely they were sent using phone numbers bought from less scrupulous data brokers or on the dark web.
There’s already concern that overly personalized brand messages can come off as creepy, particularly in SMS marketing. If this sort of harassment becomes more popular, that creepiness factor is certainly not going to get better – at least, not before it gets much, much worse.
But Wait! There’s More!
The death of search. [The Atlantic]
Online social media harassment toward women has skyrocketed in the wake of Trump’s election. [Bloomberg]
Hackers are filing false police data requests with US tech companies to obtain PII. [TechCrunch]
Will news publishers see another “Trump bump” in Trump’s second term? Probably not. [Digiday]
AMC acquires the rights to BBC America for $42 million. [Variety]
