Data Privacy

CTV is at a crossroads, writes Mark Walker, CEO of Direct Digital Holdings. We’re already seeing streaming become the dominant way TV is delivered, which opens up CTV ads to a wealth of possibilities. With that, the industry will face an existential question: What is the role of TV advertising now that it is connected? 

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Slump Bump When the economy goes south, the ad industry goes south-er, writes Peter Kafka at Vox. It was true during the 2008 recession as well as in 2020, when the pandemic hit and businesses pulled the emergency break on ad budgets. Now, ad-based […]

Data clean rooms and regulation could be topics on The Big Story any week this year. But despite the tsunami of news coverage on both topics, each remains largely unknown or misunderstood.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Unfluential  Meta claims to have taken down a Chinese political influence operation that used fake accounts to agitate and misinform Americans. The China-backed ring of accounts focused on hot-button issues, such as gun control and abortion, from both sides. This was about China […]

The US data privacy landscape is chaotic. The future of the recently proposed American Data Privacy and Protection Act is now decidedly up in the air, and states are passing their own privacy laws in the absence of a federal one, which makes compliance complicated. Federal agencies like the FTC are also trying to fill the data privacy rulemaking void.

The FTC enforces truth in advertising laws with special attention to ads that claim particular benefits to a person’s health or their bank account. But the FTC can only bring so many cases to trial. Which is where the National Advertising Division comes in.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. All A-Board The W3C created a board of directors and filed to become a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Hooray!  You seem unenthused.  It may sound dull, but this is important news.  MIT informed the W3C last year that it would no longer host the organization. But […]

How will the high-stakes game of antitrust chicken between Google and the US Department of Justice play out? It could be a first important proactive step toward true structural change – not just at Google but across many of the biggest players in the industry, writes Arnaud Créput, CEO of Equativ.

Recent speeches by DOJ and FTC leaders share a common thread, each organization sees a need for more aggressive market intervention and action to deliver on its mission. Plus: Getting the industry to weigh in on the definition of “premium.”

Clean rooms are riding a wave of momentum as the ad industry looks for ways to use aggregated, anonymized data sets to predict audience identity. Yet, despite a catchy name, clean rooms aren’t necessarily as “clean” as they promise to be, writes Drew Stein, CEO of Audigent.

Earlier this week, AdExchanger asked FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya during his keynote at the NAD’s conference on advertising law in Washington, DC, why the commission decided to sue Kochava rather than any other ad tech company with a location data business. And, according to Bedoya, Kochava was singled out for a reason.

While Google’s recent decision to extend the life of third-party cookies for another year didn’t come as much of a surprise, it nonetheless sent another ripple throughout the ecosystem. As we enter a future focused on restoring consumer trust, the past few years have seen a ton of changes to the digital advertising landscape, writes Mark Pearlstein, CRO of Permutive.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Defining Moments The IAB Tech Lab introduced Seller-Defined Audiences (SDA) in February as a post-cookie, post-ATT option for publishers to create targetable impressions without sending retargetable cookies or device IDs to DSPs. But standardizing contextual data taxonomies can be difficult, and the buy […]

Although the Federal Trade Commission has historically been a fan of the ad industry governing itself, it’s been making moves to signal that the commission might start to reject self-regulatory practices, at least on the privacy front.

Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter, who leads the Department of Justice Antitrust Division, is pressing a tougher interpretation of American antitrust law to meet the requirements of a new digital economy. “We have all seen that in digital markets, monopolies self-sustain,” he said.

As measurement challenges intensify for DTC marketers, TikTokalytics vendors have been filling the gap. Plus: Analyzing the language at an FTC hearing on “commercial surveillance.”

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger.com that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…

Last week, I tuned into the entire FTC forum on “surveillance capitalism” and data security – all five-plus hours of it (you’re welcome?) – and this is my main takeaway: The online advertising industry needs to find a new way to talk about itself.

A federal privacy law is perhaps the only way the digital media industry can stave off Big Tech companies, which are aggressively trying to define privacy on their own terms, writes Jason Bier, general counsel and chief privacy officer at Adstra.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Engine Room The Justice Department held a tutorial session with a judge and Google’s counsel to prepare for an antitrust trial beginning next year, Bloomberg reports.  The tutorial is a reminder how difficult it can be to manage a Big Tech suit. […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Services Company What do Apple’s prices indicate about its Services revenue plans?  A lot, actually.  Apple’s MO has been to increase customer lifetime value by increasing devices and prices. Apple made a brief run at the lower market with the 5C, a phone […]

Sephora is the first company to be fined under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) to the tune of $1.2 million. Cory Munchbach, president and COO of BlueConic, weighs in on what this first instance of CCPA enforcement means for other brands and the future of privacy.

Apple made an announcement that might have digital advertising ramifications sooner than news about the company’s DSP. Apple’s forthcoming “Lockdown Mode” can protect consumers from illicit activity and unwanted tracking. But it’s designed for a specific group of individuals vulnerable to attacks – plus, it can impact functionality in a way most users won’t tolerate.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Unbeatable You The podcasting business is colliding with vlogging, as popular YouTube accounts and podcast hosts branch out into a hybrid video podcast format. The big winner, of course, is YouTube.  One recent report found that YouTube is actually the biggest podcasting […]

When the GDPR was passed in 2016, it was a wake-up call for anyone that handled consumer data. Now, four years since its implementation, GDPR’s efficacy remains unclear, writes Jessica Jacobs, global director of partnerships and growth at Incubeta.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Blackest Box The name “Meta Advantage+” might confuse you into thinking Facebook has a streaming service. But the company is just following in Google’s footsteps. Google launched Performance Max, a black box within a walled garden, late last year to replace Google Smart […]

There’s a storm brewing and wildfires are raging. We’re not talking about hurricane season or climate change, though, but rather the fallout for ad tech from the macroeconomic downturn and privacy lawsuits, including the FTC’s recent complaint against Kochava which challenges the programmatic data-selling model writ large.

The European Parliament adopted the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in July. Although they were passed as one legislative package, they function as two distinct laws. But there is one common thread: Holding Big Tech providers more accountable for what happens on their platforms.

The FTC sued Kochava on Monday for allegedly selling visitation data tied to abortion clinics, mental health facilities, places of worship, domestic abuse shelters and other sensitive locations.

While Chrome dallies on the third-party cookie question, Firefox keeps releasing new anti-tracking features. Marshall Erwin, Mozilla’s chief security officer, dishes on everything from cracking down on fingerprinting to its unlikely collaboration with Meta on privacy-preserving attribution technology.