regulation

In-store audio ads grow, but attribution and headphones raise doubts; Hidden fees persist as drip pricing draws scrutiny; World Cup ad costs surge.

The year ahead in commerce, with insights from the NRF Big Show conference, where retailers congregate every January. Plus, the 2026 privacy policy cheat sheet.

This year, programmatic companies faced tough decisions about privacy, awkward acquisitions and the cookie die-off that never quite happened.

Live from New York at Programmatic IO, the AdExchanger editorial team debriefs what ad tech’s brightest minds are saying and doing around AI and measurement.

“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 Alan Chapell, founder of law firm Chapell & Associates. The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has raised significant issues with respect to the Privacy Sandbox and Google’s proposed depreciation […]

We’re entering the end-game for third-party cookies, but an unlikely group could intervene to keep them alive: regulators. Last Friday, Google agreed to let UK watchdog group Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) approve its decision to remove third-party cookies. The move is unusual, reports senior editor Allison Schiff, because it’s an example of regulators guiding […]

This week on The Big Story, we present the latest in privacy protection regulations – true-false style. Because, honestly, this stuff can be pretty dry unless you make a game out of it.  As you might know, Virginia’s Consumer Data Protection Act (CDPA) will likely soon become law. But how is it different from the […]

“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 Gary Kibel, a partner in the digital media, technology and privacy practice group at Davis & Gilbert. The ad tech ecosystem in the United States is largely based on  the […]

“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 Richard Eisert, partner at Davis & Gilbert. For the ad tech community, election day felt like deja vu. Less than a year after the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) came into […]

The data, insights, technologies and communication channels that today’s marketers have at their disposal should make this the transformative age of marketing. But as new regulations such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) go into effect, US marketers are finding that earning the trust of consumers while remaining compliant is increasingly complicated. Successful brands […]

If 2018 was the year of GDPR and 2019 was the year of CCPA-related anxiety, 2020 will be the year the digital advertising industry is forced to mature rather than just talk about it. The threat of severe penalties for noncompliance combined with inconsistent legal guidelines (and a lack of federal privacy legislation in the United […]

Regulation and an increased demand for user privacy has slowed the flood of money into programmatic advertising globally. Sixty-nine percent of all dollars spent on digital advertising will be transacted programmatically by 2020, up from 65% in 2019, Zenith predicts. And programmatic spend will surpass $100 billion globally for the first time this year. But […]

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…

“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 Kelly Anderson, vice president of data protection and privacy at Ericsson Emodo. Just as 5G is coming into view on the horizon, there’s a trainload of new privacy regulations and […]

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…

A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…

The ad tech industry might soon be facing a more punitive FTC. While the consumer privacy and protections agency traditionally came down on blatantly fraudulent advertising, like rebilling scams, or improperly targeting children, the influx of data-driven technology has required the FTC to reevaluate its agenda. With consumer privacy protections becoming a more pressing issue, […]

If lawmakers have anything to do with it, political ads on Facebook, Google, Twitter and other online platforms may soon be subject to the same disclosure requirements as traditional political advertising. Senators introduced a bipartisan bill on Thursday to do just that, prompted by revelations of Russian meddling before and during the 2016 US presidential […]

Net neutrality is not long for this world. In a 2-1 party-line vote Thursday, the Republican-led Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to repeal Title II, the regulatory framework used by the former regime to reclassify broadband providers as common carriers. The proposed rule, part of the FCC’s effort at “restoring internet freedom,” will be subject […]

The US Senate on Thursday voted down Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations that would have required internet service providers to get users to consent to be targeted by advertisers. The law would have required the providers (ISPs) to get explicit consent from users before allowing advertisers to buy or target against web browsing histories, geolocation, […]

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) passed a stringent set of online privacy regulations on Thursday. The law, expected to go into effect next year, expands the FCC’s mandate over internet service providers (ISPs), which will soon have to obtain individual consent to use data drawn from a subscriber’s activity, such as web browsing, app usage […]

In the past two weeks, the European Union has further expanded the scope of its regulatory powers and revealed more zealous plans to influence competition between digital properties. In late August, the Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) released net neutrality guidelines, which become law in 2018, that forbid practices like “fast lanes” […]

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 […]

Creating real-time content is a challenge for any brand – but for brands operating in highly regulated industries, it’s a potential compliance risk. There isn’t a federal regulator out there that doesn’t have rules around misleading, deceptive or unfair practices, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission. And […]

The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Monday that formalized its opposition to the FCC’s proposed set-top box rules. Under the proposed rules, companies such as Google and TiVo who manufacture their own set-top boxes could access content from multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) without having to […]

Ad blocking might be marketers’ current headache, but FTC Commissioner Julie Brill believes it’s up to the advertising industry to alleviate that pain. At AdExchanger’s Industry Preview event in New York on Thursday, she called on the audience of vendors, agencies and marketers to create “usable tools” so consumers can deal with their privacy concerns. […]

California Gov. Jerry Brown set a precedent for privacy rights last week when he signed into law Assembly Bill 370. Under the bill, which amended a section of the California Business and Professions Code, websites that collect personally identifiable information (PII) about California residents must provide a privacy policy that identifies the type of PIIs […]