Rather than write my own opening line, I’ll defer to this Twitter exchange, which encapsulates the point I want to make.
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They do not go gently into that good night. But dinosaurs are dinosaurs no matter how much they ignore the meteorite
— Nik.M (@plac_hold) January 25, 2023
Privacy is one of the most pressing issues facing the online advertising industry – and although ad tech is scrappy, it probably won’t be able to MacGyver its way out of this one.
I get it that constantly going on and on about privacy can feel stifling, like getting stuck talking to someone at a party who won’t shut up about their postage stamp collection. (Apologies to all the philatelists out there. Stamps can be fascinating.)
But saying that privacy makes your eyes glaze over isn’t the best look.
Restrictions over data collection and its use are now a fact of life. This is true whether we’re talking about platform policy changes, regulations abroad, laws at the US state level or scrutiny coming from DC.
Whereas you might only have heard academics, activists and perhaps some journalists opining about privacy prior to GDPR coming into effect in 2018, it’s a mainstream topic now, said Mikko Niva, Vodafone’s group privacy officer and head of legal, privacy, security and content standards, speaking during an IAPP LinkedIn Live session earlier this week tied to Data Privacy Day, an awareness-raising event held annually every January 28.
“CEOs talk about it, parliamentarians talk about it, the public talks about it,” Niva said. “People do understand the concerns, and politicians react to people’s concerns.”
Politicians also react when provoked.
During his unapologetic opening keynote on Monday at the IAB’s Annual Leadership Meeting (ALM) in Florida, IAB CEO David Cohen highlighted what he called the “cynicism and hypocrisy” of Apple and the extremism of “political opportunists” in DC.
It’s not unusual for the kickoff speech at ALM to be fire and brimstone. In 2016, Randall Rothenberg, who was then the CEO of IAB, referred to ad blockers as “profiteers” and members of an “unethical, immoral, mendacious coven of techie wannabes.”
But skewering ad blockers is a little different than antagonizing lawmakers who already don’t have the highest opinion of the online advertising industry.
Melissa Braid, a spokesperson for the Senate Commerce Committee, was quoted in the Politico Pro Morning Tech newsletter this week responding to Cohen’s remarks: “The only ‘extremist’ here is the lobbyist who thinks he has a God-given right to personally profit from spying on regular Americans.”
The stank coming off the word “lobbyist” is palpable.
As Ruben Schreurs, Ebiquity’s chief product officer, rightly observed on LinkedIn, hyperbolic language is divisive and it drives polarization.
Because words matter.
“Commercial surveillance,” for example, which is how many regulators and lawmakers refer to the online ad industry, is itself a hyperbolic term. But fighting fire with fire might end up burning everything down.
Follow Allison Schiff (@OSchiffey) and AdExchanger (@adexchanger) on Twitter.
“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media.
