Data Privacy

Privacy regulations have the potential to consolidate market share among large technology platforms. Aka, when publishers reduce the number of ad tech, audience measurement and other web technology vendors they work with, Google and Facebook win, according to new academic research examining the unintended consequences of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The skittishness with […]

For Placed, life at Foursquare is a lot different than life was at Snap. Case in point: Foursquare and Placed completed the integration of their first-party audience data sets into a single attribution product within 90 days of the acquisition, which closed this summer. Snap sold Placed to Foursquare in May after acquiring the company […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Good Job LinkedIn is growing like gangbusters. The Microsoft-owned job platform saw “record levels of engagement” this quarter, CEO Satya Nadella told investors during the company’s earnings call this week. Read the transcript. Microsoft reported a 25% YoY revenue increase for LinkedIn, but didn’t […]

Twitter’s stock fell like a lead balloon Thursday morning – down as much as 20% in pre-market trading – after reporting an anemic third quarter. According to Twitter, revenue took a hit in Q3 thanks to a bit of seasonality in July and August and a few ad product-related “bugs” that it’s working to fix. […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Reclaiming The News CNN is launching a digital news aggregation service. The news company will pay other publishers to feature both subscription and ad-funded content on the still-unnamed service, called “NewsCo” internally, The Information reports. Like News Corp, which announced its Knewz aggregation platform […]

On the menu in Washington, DC, today: Mark Zuckerberg, served skewered and moderately grilled by House reps during a hearing on Facebook’s impact on the financial services and housing sectors. Most of the questions he faced were skeptical queries about the potential pitfalls of Facebook’s attempted foray into cryptocurrency with Libra, which Rep. Brad Sherman, […]

The California Consumer Privacy Act wants to make opting out of data collection as easy as clicking a button. But for publishers, advertisers and ad tech companies, it’s not so simple. On Tuesday, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the IAB Tech Lab released the first draft of a compliance framework to help companies handle the […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Power In Numbers Attorneys general from 31 additional states have joined New York AG Letitia James’s probe into Facebook, bringing the number of states involved to 46 (not including the territory of Guam, which is also hopping aboard). James first launched the probe, which […]

Transparency, notice and choice are good for privacy, right? Not if people are overloaded with too much information, according to Firefox, which released a Ghostery-like tool on Tuesday as part of Firefox 70 that shows users how many trackers are tracking them. Overdoing it on transparency actually creates opacity that puts the onus on users […]

WebKit, the open source browser engine that powers Apple’s Safari, is in the very early stages of testing an API that would give browser operators the ability to see whether users are logged in to a website or not. Steven Francolla, head of global publisher strategy at LiveRamp, recently came across a reference to the […]

Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, CMO of Firefox parent company Mozilla, has fiery opinions about technology companies that use privacy as “nothing more than a communications ploy.” “Most organizations aren’t taking the right steps to treat people like human beings, and that’s a big problem,” said Kaykas-Wolff, who’s been with Mozilla for more than four and a half […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Race To 5G  Sprint and T-Mobile’s $26 billion merger was approved by the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday. The vote came in 3-2 along party lines, with both Democratic commissioners opposing the deal. The companies still face a legal battle from state attorneys […]

Change is in the air. To wit, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, topping the polls of Democratic presidential candidates, has made the breakup of big tech into a pet issue on the campaign trail. At the same time, regulatory and privacy concerns are driving state legislation that could transform the way consumer data is collected and, thus, […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. CMO A Go-Go Dunkin’ CMO Tony Weisman will step down in December after a busy two years at the company. Weisman oversaw a major rebrand (from “Dunkin’ Donuts” to its more general coffee and food focus today), as well as the first overhaul of […]

Privacy’s growing impact on targeted advertising is creating unprecedented challenges for marketers. One underlying reason contributing to the stress: Marketers feel betrayed by big data, said Andrew Frank, VP distinguished analyst for Gartner. “Big data was supposed to give us this scalable customer intimacy, this ability as marketers to know exactly what to sell to […]

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is almost baked. On Friday, two days before the Oct. 13 deadline for his blessing, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed seven bills into law that augment and bolster the CCPA. The bills, which were sitting on his desk since the state legislature closed its 2019 session on Sept. 13, […]

Hey, CCPA-heads, the moment you’ve been waiting months for has arrived. The California attorney general’s office on Thursday published the first draft of its implementation regulations for the California Consumer Privacy Act. [Click here to read the full text.] The purpose of the regulations is to operationalize the law and provide practical guidance. It’s the […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Twitter Oops Twitter used emails and phone numbers provided by users for two-factor authentication – when you provide a backup security contact to catch any improper account logins – for advertising purposes. Specifically, emails and phone numbers were used for Tailored Audiences campaigns, Twitter’s […]

Does behavioral advertising actually bring in significantly more revenue for publishers than contextual advertising? That question, hotly debated by privacy advocates, academics, publishers and advertisers, was a central theme at the Federal Trade Commission’s day-long workshop about the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act held Monday in Washington, DC. The workshop explored whether it’s time to […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.  Today’s column is written by Sol Ross, managing director at LiveRamp. More than a year into the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), its strengths and weaknesses continue to be evaluated. While the law is […]

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

Companies large and small have griped for years that tech giants – Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple – habitually engage in anticompetitive behavior. Regulators around the world are now paying attention. In some cases, companies proactively proffer their grievances, while in others, regulators solicit their feedback as evidence gathering in newly launched antitrust investigations. Here’s […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Vice And Virtue The consolidation of media proceeds apace. One week after Vox nabbed New York Media, Vice said it will acquire Refinery29. The price was not disclosed, but CNN business sources put the deal below $500 million. Vice CEO Nancy Dubuc called the […]

Here’s a bit of California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) trivia for you: The word “homepage” doesn’t mean what you think it means. Beginning Jan. 1, 2020, businesses covered by the CCPA must prominently display a “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” button on their homepages. But under the law, a homepage is more than just […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Big Guns Vs. Google Comcast’s FreeWheel unit told a congressional task force last month that Google used privacy concerns to limit FreeWheel and other video advertising companies from selling ads for its clients on YouTube. Other ad tech and cable companies have spoken out […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Help Us, IAB Next up for the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA): Gov. Gavin Newsom needs to sign the bill into law, and the attorney general needs to release practical guidelines. (Read AdExchanger’s coverage.) It’s all happening fast, and if you’re an ad tech […]

Alastair Mactaggart, the man behind the California Consumer Privacy Act, has a second act. Disturbed by the intensity with which ad industry and tech lobbying groups “explicitly prioritized weakening the CCPA,” as Mactaggart put it in an open letter posted to his website, he’s spearheading a new ballot measure for the 2020 California elections. The […]

“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video.  Today’s column is written by Jane Clarke, managing director and CEO at the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM). Smart marketers today are trying to understand the impact of their advertising across a fragmented ecosystem of platforms. In particular, we want to […]

Big tech can’t swing a cat these days without hitting an antitrust investigation. Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple are all facing varying degrees of heat from the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, state attorneys general across the nation, the House Judiciary Committee and competition authorities around the world. It’s hard to keep track […]

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) is nearing its final form. With the close of the state legislature’s 2019 session on Friday, no more bills can be introduced this year, and the handful of amendments that did pass the Senate are now headed to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk for a signature. Newsom has until […]