Federal Trade Commission

Efforts to police children’s data online are running up against the limits of decades-old privacy laws, such as COPPA.

Privacy isn’t black-and-white, says the FTC’s Chris Mufarrige, promising evidence-driven consumer protection cases under the Trump administration.

Keeping American kids safe in what FTC Commissioner Mark Meador calls “an increasingly complex and fast-paced technological environment” is a top priority for the agency.

The FTC probes Google and Amazon over transparency in their search businesses; Walmart will only allow authorized sellers; and Perplexity’s ad business garners criticism.

Whatever your take on the FTC’s oddly conditional green light for the Omnicom/IPG merger, one thing’s clear: The agency is being more active than expected.

Using pejorative labels, like “surveillance advertising,” does “nothing to help us understand the practice,” says Christopher Mufarrige, the newly appointed director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.

Monday was a busy day for antitrust attorneys in Washington, DC: It marked Day One of the the remedies phase of the Google search trial and the start of the second week of FTC v. Meta.

What’s in the tea leaves for the FTC’s new chair Andrew Ferguson, who took over in January? Kyle Kessler, a partner at Womble Bond Dickinson, weighs in.

Now that Chevron is overturned, it will be easier for companies to challenge FTC regulations in court, arguing that they exceed the FTC’s mandate, writes OpenX’s Julie Rooney.

Under the new leadership, the FTC is signaling a pivot away from sweeping rulemaking efforts to let Congress play that role, writes Uplevel CEO Raashee Gupta Erry.

But cookies aside – and don’t forget to leave a few real ones out for Santa – there were lots of other big privacy developments in 2024. Here are some of the highlights.

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

Although most people probably understand in an abstract way that they’re being tracked online, the details are fuzzy. Honestly, the details are fuzzy to me, and I write about this stuff for a living.

Nikki Bhargava, a partner at law firm Reed Smith, spoke with AdExchanger about knowns – and unknowns – on the privacy as we gear up for the next four years.

The Federal Trade Commission is warning companies that using a data clean room isn’t some kind of get-out-of-compliance-free card.

Let’s clear the air. The Federal Trade Commission does not hate advertising, says Samuel Levine, the agency’s consumer protection chief. But the FTC does have a few suggestions for the ad industry.

Has the Federal Trade Commission been overstepping its bounds? Yes, according to newly appointed Republican FTC Commissioner Melissa Holyoak.

The FTC’s latest staff report has strong message for social media and streaming video platforms: Stop engaging in the “vast surveillance” of consumers.

Not only will hashing data not anonymize it, but regulators, including the Federal Trade Commission, consider hashed identifiers to be personal information.

If you weren’t able to tune in to the FTC’s PrivacyCon event last week – it was a seven-hour affair, after all – then worry not. We gotchoo.

Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter had some free advice for anyone tuning in to the Federal Trade Commission’s virtual PrivacyCon event on Wednesday: “Pay close attention to Kochava.”

The next wave of privacy regulation revolves around data brokers. And while the term “data broker” may have a negative connotation, its legal definition is fairly straightforward.

Last week, FTC Chair Lina Khan announced a probe into Big Tech’s relationship with generative AI companies at an FTC forum to address competition concerns related to AI technology – its first AI-focused tech summit.

Lawmakers are busy playing politics, and it’s getting in the way of creating safety guardrails for children’s privacy online.

Meet Doceree, a programmatic health care marketing platform with a twist. Rather than allowing brands to target patients on the open web, Doceree has a specialized DSP for targeting doctors with secure messages on physician-only platforms, says CEO Harshit Jain.

On Monday, iHeartMedia-owned SSP Triton Digital announced an integration with Amazon Publisher Services that allows advertisers to buy interactive audio ads through the Amazon DSP on streaming audio.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. AI? More Like “Ehh, I Don’t Know About That” Ad platforms are plowing ahead with AI-based software that is not ready to fill roles previously served by human expertise.  That means machine-learning-controlled ad products (Google’s Performance Max and Meta Advantage+ shopping campaigns are the […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Thanks For Not Sharing Non-advertising companies can end up with strange new incentive structures when they start collecting ad dollars. For instance, the more Netflix’s ad revenue grows, the greater the internal pressure to crack down on password sharing. Previously, Netflix could turn […]

On Wednesday – less than two months after going to town on the Google Video Partners program – Adalytics published what it says is direct evidence of personalized ads being served against kids content on YouTube in a follow-up to its bombshell report last week alleging the same.

Collecting consent is a far more nuanced process than just getting someone to opt in. It also matters how you ask for it.