Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
Reg-You-Later, Regulators
Two of the EU’s biggest Big Tech and AI regulatory antagonists are stepping down, The Washington Post reports.
European Commissioner Thierry Breton, who oversaw development of the Digital Services Act that strengthened content regulations for large social media platforms, resigned on Monday. Meanwhile, Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission’s top antitrust official and architect of the Digital Markets Act, will step down later this year.
Vestager was widely considered to be the driving force behind the Commission’s regulation of large American tech companies like Google, Meta and Amazon. During her tenure, US tech giants paid several record-breaking fines for anticompetitive gatekeeping of digital markets.
Meanwhile, Breton’s push to mitigate online misinformation made him an enemy of social media and advertising platforms, including Spotify, Meta and X.
Breton and Vestager are leaving office just as the laws they championed are coming into effect, which will test how prepared the EU is to implement its new regulations.
But given a recent report by former European Central Bank president Mario Draghi criticizing the European government’s oppositional stance to Big Tech, these departures could represent a broader shift.
“One wonders if the Commission is seeking a new direction,” Georgetown University law and tech professor Anupam Chander tells WaPo.
I Think, Therefore I GAM
An ocean without water. A forest without trees. A web without GAM.
It’s impossible to imagine digital advertising without the unholy alliance of Google’s ad server, ad network and AdX. Until now.
The ad industry can move beyond the requirement for a publisher ad server, writes Gareth Glaser in his newsletter Gareth Hates AdTech. GAM’s longevity is not a testament to innovation, but rather the result of Google Ads demand being exclusive to AdX.
If the DOJ’s ad tech antitrust suit leads to GAM being divested or Google being required to allow competitors equal access to demand, programmatic could be at the beginning of a new, lucrative epoch, according to Glaser.
The pieces are there with existing ad tech and Prebid. But seizing the moment requires programmatic vendors to behave rationally and invest in change.
“The reason things aren’t all consolidated here is primarily because OpenRTB also has to get its sh*t together regarding taxonomies for this stuff,” he writes, “and DSPs need to start ingesting and optimizing to the data fields more flexibly and stop driving people to use PMPs for dumb sh*t.”
Tell us what you really think.
Glaser ends his post without optimism: “I won’t hold my breath.”
Pre Prebid
In other Prebid news, it turns out the only reason Prebid.org exists is because Google “vehemently objected” to the Prebid tech being incorporated into the IAB Tech Lab.
That little nugget comes courtesy of a video deposition featuring DOJ witness Brian O’Kelley, co-founder and former CEO of AppNexus, an early competitor to Google on the DSP, SSP and publisher ad server fronts. BOK, as he’s known, said Google shot down the proposal during an IAB Tech Lab board meeting, reports Arielle Garcia, director of intelligence at Check My Ads.
Prebid should have been a Tech Lab product. That was the natural landing place. At the time, Prebid.js was just a bit of javascript code developed at AppNexus and intended to be open-sourced via the Tech Lab. Also, if the IAB represents the interests of publishers, ad tech vendors and advertisers – as in, all stakeholders not named Google – it should have full-throatedly supported the Prebid initiative.
However, Google is the IAB’s single largest financial contributor, as well as a board member, and was able to force Prebid to venture out on its own as a nonprofit org.
But Wait, There’s More!
Google might be close to a breakup, but sources warn authorities to “be careful what you wish for.” [Digiday]
TikTok is becoming a popular news source for American adults. [Bloomberg]
Google Search and Ads are adopting C2PA certification for labeling whether images are real or AI-generated. [The Verge]
Instagram makes teen accounts private by default and strengthens age verification under mounting pressure from regulators. [AP]
Universal Music looks to subscriptions and superfans for fresh growth. [WSJ]
