Firefox

Judge Leonie Brinkema is ready to be done with the DOJ v. Google saga; Amazon DSP comes out on top; and Mozilla brings programmatic ads to to the Firefox browser.

Remedies in the federal search antitrust case against Google landed with a thud earlier this week. Most publishers and ad industry pundits were sorely disappointed.

Google’s search antitrust trial ends with a whimper; the pitfalls of agency-owned SSPs; Perplexity axes its ads business; and brands are still building big-ticket metaverse experiences.

While some Privacy Sandbox testers lamented their seemingly wasted effort, they remain committed to post-cookie targeting and measurement – even if Google eventually abandons the Sandbox entirely.

Rival browsers raise an objection to Google being forced to sell Chrome; ad agencies pivot to software and services; and people are turning to chatbots instead of search, with error-filled results.

A group of 20 web app developers sent a letter to the CMA claiming the regulator’s proposed remedies for increasing competition among mobile browsers do not address barriers to entry for mobile web extensions on iOS and Android.

Recent moves by major ad tech players prove the industry doesn’t actually need cookies. But Chrome’s cookie pivot doesn’t clarify what will happen to the 1% of its audience that’s already cookieless or what will become of plans to deprecate the Android Ad ID on mobile.

Two years after leaving Meta to launch their own privacy-focused ad measurement startup in 2022, Graham Mudd and Brad Smallwood have sold their company to Mozilla.

Bonbon gives users rewards – such as discounts or chances to win merchandise – for setting up email registrations with publishers. Now The Trade Desk’s OpenPass will include that same rewards functionality.

When Google finally stopped supporting third-party cookies for 1% of Chrome users, the ad industry reacted as if the sky was falling. But it’s unlikely that Google’s cookie deprecation plans will ever be fully fulfilled.