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Google’s AI browser opens relevant tabs for you; Disney-owned characters are now featured on Sora; and Google’s AI Max for Search gets lackluster feedback.

On Google and Meta platforms, AI search becomes the default; TTD might cut its costs; and apparently, toddlers like AI slop on YouTube.

Last week, after nearly six years of development and delays, Google officially retired its Privacy Sandbox.
Which means it’s time for a memorial service.

Judge Mehta defends his light touch in addressing Google’s search monopoly; the de minimis exemption for imports is over, and it could ding Q4 ad spend; and a whistleblower says Meta ignored WhatsApp’s privacy lapses.

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.

Data brokers de-index their opt-outs; Meta is still the go-to for influencer ads; and Perplexity offers to buy Chrome.

As the quality of answer engines improves, people will click through to publisher websites less often. The solution isn’t to wage war against AI. It’s time to build a sustainable future for all stakeholders.

Amazon acquires AI-equipped wearable manufacturer Bee; the UK’s CMA shares competition guidelines for Google and Apple; and AI models may be learning from each other in unexpected, potentially harmful, ways.

We’re seeing the worst possible outcomes with the CPM-based buying approach. And Google’s recent decision to hang on to cookies indefinitely risks perpetuating the worst parts of the digital ad business.

DDM reported 1% Q1 revenue growth, citing traffic downturns Google’s AI search results and soft advertising demand due to tariff-induced uncertainty.

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.

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

PayPal embraces off-site media but says no to data sales; Google pivoted on cookies again, but what about the Google Ad ID?; and gen AI bots are blowing up publisher server costs.

Erez Levin, a former Googler and current outspoken consultant, on why the digital ad industry should transact on media quality signals like attention instead of optimizing to outcomes and other flawed attribution models.

Google’s SSP and ad server businesses have been ruled monopolies. And Google Chrome isn’t going to change its third-party cookie opt-ins, further preserving third-party cookies. Go inside this momentous news.

If the court ultimately orders Google to spin off AdX or DFP, the result would be a fundamental rebalancing of power across the digital advertising supply chain. For marketers, the implications are just as significant.

2024’s most popular guest columns offer a snapshot of an industry in flux – and one that’s grown cynical due to repeated promises of unrealized change.

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.

Despite Chrome’s cookie deprecation turnaround, a comprehensive CAPI strategy remains crucial for brands advertising on Meta, LinkedIn and Snap – yet many advertisers are dragging their feet. Why the reluctance?

In-game ad platform Frameplay joins with competitors to chase scale; top-level domains become a top-level concern; and could Google be forced to open its data warehouse?

Dotdash Meredith’s Lindsay Van Kirk says the cookie-based buying tools she helped develop in her early career at AppNexus placed too much value on unreliable third-party audiences. But contextual tools like DDM’s D/Cipher, which she now oversees, can build a better ad ecosystem for buyers and sellers.

Competing agendas are limiting the tools publishers have at their disposal in ways that aren’t always primarily motivated by user privacy. Here are five things about privacy in digital media that should keep publishers up at night.

The publication still makes most of its on-site digital revenue from programmatic. But it’s doubling down on direct-sold custom content, especially when it comes to video and social media.

An ex-Googler asks: Has the commitment to perfection over progress led to the current state of play for the Privacy Sandbox and harmed the industry’s opportunity to provide better consumer privacy?

The only way forward for the industry is to put consumer choice first. That means putting the cookie behind us and rebuilding our relationship with consumers.

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.

With a landmark ruling potentially forcing Google to change its business practices, who is actually likely to steal some of its search market share? And what should marketers do about it?

The trajectory of digital advertising remains unchanged. There are plenty of signs that the investments advertisers have made in cookie alternatives are already paying off.

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.