Data Privacy

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The New News News industry downsizing continued last week with layoffs at Vice and buyouts at McClatchy, close on the heels of similar painful cuts at BuzzFeed, Verizon Media and Gannett. “We are changing the size of the workforce to align with the revenue,” […]

Facebook is getting beaten up by a punishing news cycle – but, for its part, it’s beating the street. The stock surged more than 17% in after-hours trading on Wednesday. Revenue for the fourth quarter clocked in at $16.91 billion, a 30.4% year-over-year (YoY) increase. Nearly all of that – $16.64 billion – was thanks […]

Facebook’s plan to integrate the backend infrastructure of its messaging platforms isn’t sitting well with privacy advocates, security experts, European regulators or US lawmakers. Alarm bells are ringing all over the place. The Irish Data Protection Authority says it’s going to be “very closely scrutinizing” the situation, particularly where it might involve the sharing and […]

The ad tech industry might soon be facing a more punitive FTC. While the consumer privacy and protections agency traditionally came down on blatantly fraudulent advertising, like rebilling scams, or improperly targeting children, the influx of data-driven technology has required the FTC to reevaluate its agenda. With consumer privacy protections becoming a more pressing issue, […]

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 […]

“We’re privacy-centric,” said every marketer ever. But what was once a reflexive statement must now be backed by substance. Despite excitement about harnessing data to send the right message to the right person at the right etc., marketers must now wrestle with whether they should simply because they can. One of the major themes at […]

Marketers have a lot to contend with in 2019. Heads are spinning with thoughts of consumer-driven privacy concerns, different regulations in different regions, Apple blocking third-party tracking on Safari and how to buy TV in a world of digital delivery. At AdExchanger’s Industry Preview conference Thursday, Google’s vice president of ad platforms Sean Downey considered […]

“The Sell Sider” is a column written for the sell side of the digital media community. Today’s column is written by Alessandro De Zanche, an audience and data strategy consultant. Some consider ad blockers to be the first user-led mass rebellion against bad advertising practices, booming around 2015 and not stopping since. But ad blocking […]

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 […]

If you live in the United States, chances are you live in one of Nextdoor’s 190,000 active neighborhoods, which cover 90% of the country. But many in the advertising business haven’t yet worked with Nextdoor, which started selling ads less than two years ago. Leading that advertising push is Lauren Nemeth, a Google, AppNexus and […]

MillerCoors doesn’t have the opportunity to collect much first-party data: Most of its sales come through independently-owned convenience and liquor stores or bars and restaurants. “It’s very difficult to identify or measure audiences because of the nature of how these businesses are run,” said Brad Feinberg, VP of media and consumer engagement at MillerCoors. “They’re […]

What started with an interest in video production blossomed into a career in programmatic advertising for NCC Media CEO Nicolle Pangis. To pay off her student loans, Pangis took a job in 1999 at 24/7 Media, a pioneering programmatic ad firm, where she worked in affiliate relations with websites that were part of the ad […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Brand Safe Enough AT&T is advertising on YouTube again after a two-year hiatus. The telco, one of the world’s largest advertisers, pulled spend from the video platform at the height of its 2017 brand safety scandal with a promise not to return until major […]

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 […]

Some ad tech companies are getting out of the managed media business – and others are jumping in with both feet. On Monday, mobile analytics company UberMedia sold its managed media business to location data platform Gimbal, marking the latter’s second acquisition of a media services unit in less than a year. Gimbal acquired Drawbridge’s managed […]

“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 Jim Kaskade, CEO at Janrain. When the EU’s landmark General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) went into effect last year, it, among other things, expanded the definition of personally identifiable information […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Broadcast Impasse CBS will be without Nielsen ratings after failing to renew a contract that expired on Monday. The dispute began six months ago over pricing, with CBS, which spent $100 million with Nielsen last year, demanding fairer terms and arguing that the metrics […]

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 […]

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 […]

After around a year of avoiding the spotlight, Google CEO Sundar Pichai spent nearly four hours fielding a grab bag of questions from members of the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, discussing everything from the scope of Google’s data collection practices to alleged political bias in search results. The problem, as is often the case […]

Will privacy legislation be the death of the third-party data ecosystem? Not according to the IAB Data Center of Excellence. Marketers are on tap to spend $19.2 billion on third-party audience data as well as technology and solutions to manage, process and analyze all that data, according to a joint IAB/Winterberry Group report released Wednesday. […]

Shorting Ads Verizon is inching away from the grand advertising ambitions it once had for Oath. The ad unit has a new chief, Guru Gowrappan, following Tim Armstrong’s departure in September, and Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg, who took over in August, is more interested in network infrastructure than media. And after failing to meet ad […]

Until now, if an ad fraud scam was uncovered, the criminals behind it would usually fade back into the shadows with impunity, and shortly thereafter, they’d be back at it again – the seemingly eternal game of Whac-A-Mole. This time, there’s accountability. Two global botnets, Methbot and 3ve, are no more, and there are real people […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Accredit Where Due Facebook got a little much-needed positive news on Tuesday when it cleared a major hurdle in its effort to gain MRC accreditation for third-party viewability measurement. Facebook completed the first of its three-part accreditation process in April, which was an inspection […]

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 […]

Representatives from nine governments gathered in London on Tuesday with pointed questions for Mark Zuckerberg about fake news, misinformation, hate speech, election interference, privacy and data collection. Thing is, Zuckerberg wasn’t there, having declined repeated invitations to testify before the UK’s Digital Culture, Media and Sports Committee. The parliamentarians from Britain, Canada, France, Ireland, Belgium, […]

The IAB Europe’s GDPR Transparency and Consent Framework – which many ad tech companies now depend on to pass user consent strings – could be on shaky legal ground. On Nov. 9, France’s data protection authority, the Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (the CNIL), issued a warning against a small French ad tech company called […]

For Julie DeTraglia, what started as an after-school habit watching re-runs of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Rhoda,” “All in the Family” and “The Carol Burnett Show” turned into a career in network and streaming TV. “It didn’t take long for me to understand that Hulu is the perfect place for me to have landed,” […]

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 […]