Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. What Will Google Do? Heightened regulatory scrutiny of Google’s ad platform business has sparked an internal discussion about whether to get rid of its ad tech vendor stack (the artist formerly known as DoubleClick), sources tell The Wall Street Journal. “[Federal and state scrutiny] […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Accenture Ends Its Audits Beginning in August 2020, Accenture will no longer provide services around media auditing, benchmarking and agency pitches, Seb Joseph reports for Digiday. In ending its auditing services, Accenture will no longer face a conflict with its media buying services. Writes […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Under The Hood Does the web need more browser engines? The recent trend has been toward browser engine consolidation. Google helped this along by growing Chrome’s market share, but Microsoft gave up on its own web-rendering software and moved to Chromium at the end […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Brand Safe Or Bust TikTok may offer a curated feed of content that will appease advertisers as brand safety becomes a bigger concern on the platform. The feed of vetted TikTok creators will enable the app to charge advertisers higher rates for guaranteed brand […]
“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 Kunal Gupta, CEO at Polar. Several political, business and tech leaders have called for the break up of Facebook, usually suggesting that Facebook split its core social networking app from […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 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 […]
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 […]
Usually, you’ve got to pay lawyers for legal advice. But between sessions at Fordham University’s annual conference on international antitrust law and policy in New York City on Friday, there was lots of informal chatter about Google’s growing list of antitrust inquiries. The takeaway: This isn’t Google’s first antitrust rodeo, but it might be different […]
“Break up Big Tech” is a good sound bite for presidential candidates on the stump. But antitrust regulators in the United States and around the world aren’t rushing to sharpen their scalpels just yet. While there’s no denying that companies like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and even Netflix “are extremely strong,” their size in the […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. CCPA Crunch Time Lobbyists, cool your jets. The California Consumer Protection Act is nearing its mostly final form. The legislative session closes on Friday the 13th (that’s not ominous), which is also the deadline for lawmakers to pass any outstanding bills. Hail Mary lobbying […]
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Trust Me, This Is Bad Fifty – count ’em, 50 – attorneys general are planning to work together on a sweeping joint antitrust investigation into Google. Google’s dominance over the online ad market will be the probe’s first priority, the Republican Texas AG told […]
New York Attorney General Letitia James is leading a bipartisan investigation into whether Facebook engages in anticompetitive behavior to drive up ad prices. James, a Democrat, is being joined in her work, which will also look into whether Facebook’s actions have endangered consumer data and reduced the quality of consumer choice, by eight other state […]
In May, during a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee about the impact of data privacy and competition policy on the digital ad ecosystem, former AppNexus CEO Brian O’Kelley told lawmakers that Google and Facebook deserve to be broken up. “Let’s apply some common sense to the regulatory process just by acknowledging that consumers pay […]
Facebook is getting poked by both the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice, but that doesn’t mean it’s facing two separate antitrust probes in the United States. “It would be unprecedented, not to mention duplicative, for the DOJ and the FTC to be investigating the same company for essentially the same conduct,” said […]
Last year, Mark Zuckerberg went on a Cambridge Analytica apology tour. This year, he’s got a new theme: DC, bring on your regs. In the absence of regulation, “we’re going to do the best we can,” the Facebook CEO said Wednesday during a fireside chat at the annual Aspen Ideas Festival. But private companies, he […]
The US Department of Justice is reportedly preparing an antitrust investigation into Google. But that doesn’t mean Google is headed for a breakup and, at least for now, there are way more questions than answers. Which parts of Google’s sprawling business will the DOJ look into? Will it delve beyond Google’s search practices, which have […]
The programmatic advertising ecosystem is a mess – even its main architect agrees. In testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Brian O’Kelley, founder and former CEO of AT&T-owned AppNexus, shared a three-pronged proposal for how he’d start to fix the tangled web he helped weave. First, give consumers control and transparency over their data. […]
Big Tech can’t catch a break in DC … actually, scratch that. If Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, is elected to the White House in 2020, she’s got a plan to break up Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple. And her proposal specifically targets Google’s ad platform business. On Friday, the Democratic presidential candidate laid out how her […]
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 […]
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 […]
With a divided Congress, don’t expect 2019 to usher in federal privacy legislation a la GDPR… or to see a breakup of big tech. Even if the midterms hadn’t shaken out as expected – with Republicans keeping the Senate and Democrats securing a majority in the House – the chance for congressional action on either […]
What’s a good, succinct way to describe the current US system of data security and privacy regulation? “It’s a mess,” said Daniel Solove, a professor of law at George Washington University. That’s why the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is hosting a series of hearings from mid-September through November to help it rethink its approach to […]
The trial that will resolve the US Justice Department’s challenge to AT&T’s $85 billion proposed acquisition of Time Warner will begin on Wednesday. The case, the first major US media merger to go to trial in decades, will indicate how the government may oversee telco and media consolidation going forward. If successful, the DOJ’s challenge […]
The European Union’s antitrust commission on Thursday added two formal charges to Google’s ever-growing pile of regulatory burdens. The first charge substantiates a previous objection claiming Google favors its own comparison shopping service in search results. “It means consumers may not see the most relevant results to their search queries,” wrote European Commissioner for Competition […]
