self-regulation

There’s a reason ad tech is no longer in a position to self regulate. Somewhere along the way, companies forgot to respect their consumers and so regulators stepped in.

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.

The ad industry tends to get lost in its own weeds. (Endless consternation about the end of third-party cookies, anyone?) But the concept of privacy encompasses much more, from dealing with misinformation to promoting competition, says Jules Polonetsky, CEO of the Future of Privacy Forum.

Mary Engle is EVP of policy at BBB National Programs, a nonprofit organization that’s helping keep self-regulation of the ad industry alive. She’s also spent more than three decades with the FTC. In this episode, Engle gets into the weeds on “commercial surveillance,” the nitty-gritty of ad disclosures, the FTC’s case against Kochava and more.

Although the Federal Trade Commission has historically been a fan of the ad industry governing itself, it’s been making moves to signal that the commission might start to reject self-regulatory practices, at least on the privacy front.

“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 Sharon Zezima, Chief Data Ethics Officer of Acoustic.  The ability for companies to navigate the data landscape grows more complex with each set of government regulations. The enactment of new […]