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A long-awaited development: Advertisers will soon be able to see around three of the most important transparency blockers in PMax.

Transparency has become the currency of credibility in advertising. Larger holding companies and black box AI platforms must recognize that their opaque practices are no longer sustainable.

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.

The programmatic “sustainability” and “waste” conversation has shifted. Plus, the 2010s called – they want Facebook back.

Google isn’t a regulator. From an attorney’s point of view, its decrees don’t carry the force of law, and that’s what lawyers are concerned with: the law.

Alphabet had another stellar earnings report. But neither its leadership nor investors ever mentioned the two landmark ongoing antitrust suits. Chrome’s reversal on third-party cookies also never came up.

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

When platforms choose to label any significant portion of an ad buy as “other,” it’s a deliberate decision to withhold information for the seller’s benefit and the buyer’s detriment.

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.

Criteo dives into video ads; after 20 years, YouTube might be the world’s biggest media brand; Threads opens up for advertising.

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.

More competition between SSPs and ad servers should be a boon for publishers in the long term. But publishers will feel some growing pains if there is a sudden disruption in Google’s ad payouts or if their ad server fees increase.

The wave of ad tech headlines in recent weeks represents a long overdue moment of reckoning for companies who (still) hold disproportionate control over publishers’ website traffic and revenue potential.

What does the end of impulse shopping mean for advertising? Plus, Remember Google+? Meta sure hopes you don’t.

The Google antitrust ruling will have wide-reaching implications for the tech industry at large, not just the ad businesses therein. But in the meantime, it’s only natural to see programmatic veterans letting off a bit of steam.

Do Google AI Overviews really bring exposure to more websites?; Meta considered an all-ad Instagram feed; and agencies are cautiously optimistic even as tariff concerns threaten upfronts season.

Temu’s US ad spend grinds to a halt; Publicis posts a strong Q1; and creative personalization tech is back in vogue.

The rest of the world is still preparing its tariff countermeasures. Plus Google has started inserting links to new Google searches into AI overviews.

Here are three areas that marketing technology professionals must handle successfully to get the most out of their AI applications.

Proof keeps piling up that gen AI makes marketing creatives lazy; Google stops serving ads to parked domains, prompting questions as to why those domains were ever monetized; and a resurgent David’s Bridal thinks it can reach profitability this year.

Google maintains its AI overviews are a boon for web traffic. Plus, there’s more than one way to combat fake reviews. 

CTV advertising has made great strides, but it still lags behind social platforms in one critical area: optimizing campaigns based on outcome data. Here’s how standardized conversion API integrations for CTV can help.

Forecasters expected tariffs would impact advertising growth projections. But that was before we knew exactly how steep these tariffs would be – and now that we do, it doesn’t bode well.

The Google PMax whisperer releases his latest annual report; publishers brace for more disruptions from Google search updates; and stolen content is the least of Wikipedia’s gen AI concerns.

No punches pulled in another Senate hearing on Big Tech’s excesses; Nielsen’s lawsuits accusing competitors of IP infringement keep getting dismissed; and investors grow wary of Reddit’s closeness to Google.

The wave of CDP consolidation is riding strong. Plus, AppLovin CEO Adam Foroughi responded to reports that short sellers are targeting the company.

Daily Mail’s ad-light subscription soars; YouTube Shorts takes another cue from TikTok; and MAGNA predicts an ad spend slump due to tariff-induced uncertainty.

Many in the industry see Google’s fingerprinting reversal as an irresponsible move due to privacy concerns, particularly in regions with strict data regulations.

Oracle’s TikTok bid is a warmed-over Project Texas; Amazon’s ads biz has its sights set on Google; and gen AI search is a good traffic source for retailers, but bad for news pubs.

Omnicom and IPG have both received additional information requests from the FTC about their merger. Plus, publishers don’t know how AI overviews fit into their referral traffic.