Technology

On Tuesday, Magnite announced it had acquired Streamr.ai, which specializes in developing AI-generated assets for small businesses to use in their CTV campaigns.

Morgan Stanley downgrades The Trade Desk; Warner Bros. Discovery and Nielsen announce a new deal; and brands aren’t sold on virtual influencers.

Transaction IDs can benefit the ecosystem, but not if they result in information asymmetry. Solutions need to be found that reduce bad duplication but do not reduce bid density.

SSPs aren’t thrilled by TTD characterizing them as “resellers”; Amazon DSP just announced a new partnership to sell Netflix inventory; and pharma brands will be subject to stricter regulations, per the FDA.

Private equity firm Vitruvian Partners backs DeepIntent with $637 million bet on programmatic privacy-compliant health care ads.

AI marketing company Cognitiv updated its contextual targeting tool, ContextGPT, to provide brands with more relevant and nuanced content.

Criteo announced a partnership with Google Search Ads 360 (SA360), Google’s enterprise search advertising platform, making Criteo the first third-party vendor to integrate with Google for on-site retail media supply.

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.

As display falters, Minute Media is acquiring AI tech that cuts longer-form video content and full-length games into bite-size clips.

Incubeta announced its acquisition of RocketSource, a consultancy that helps advertisers understand what drives customer behavior using data science and predictive analytics.

GAM’s dinner with ad agencies sparked speculation that Google is preparing to spin off its bundled SSP and ad server as a remedy to its ad tech monopoly. But Google says it’s just part of the trend of SSPs going direct to buyers.

On Monday, PubMatic became the second sell-side platform to file a follow-on antitrust lawsuit against Google.

Late Friday evening, Google filed its proposed remedies to its ad tech monopoly to District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema, and unsurprisingly, they’re rather mild – and very different from what the Department of Justice is looking for.

BranchLab, an AI startup for healthcare marketers, just added a new high-profile backer: Lance Armstrong’s Next Ventures, which invests in health and wellness startups.

Google can’t stop catching fines in Europe; Roblox game developers might finally get a cut of a revenue; and eBay is getting into the AI game.

In June, Marriott launched a new media network designed to connect its customers to relevant brands throughout the travel journey.

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

Google is running a search monopoly, but the remedies are light. How will this decision affect advertisers and competitors? Plus, Google Ad Manager is acting like a standalone SSP, a move that appears connected to the looming remedies phase of Google’s second antitrust case.

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 penalties were pretty lenient; brand crossovers may have gone too far; and why so many ad tech leaders are founding startups.

CAPI integrations have moved from a nice-to-have to a necessity for anyone operating within walled garden environments. Now they’re laying the groundwork for an outcomes-driven ad ecosystem.

We spoke to a score of ad tech leaders to uncover seven competencies essential for the success of the next generation of ad tech leadership.

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.

Roqad is buying Zeotap’s third-party data biz to boost its identity resolution capabilities, but also for access to key integrations with major ad platforms.

Google’s SSP tries to cut out its DSP ahead of a possible ad tech breakup; Perplexity’s head of ads skips town; and Amazon’s search ad pause flooded the market with big spenders.

Pause ads are going programmatic, as connected TV ad buying becomes more automated. Plus: how publishers are proposing to be compensated by AI companies – and the odds that they’ll receive what they are asking for.

Dentsu might sell its overseas business; a Prebid update worries the buy side; and Washington State imposes a new ad tax.

TTD turns its back on SSPs; scientists are finding a home on Bluesky; and a hacker used Anthropic’s Claude to plan a cybercriminal operation.

Amazon gets a taste of its own AI medicine; LinkedIn continues its pivot to video; and YouTube and Fox are on a fight.

Magnite is making a play for pause ads. On Tuesday, the advertising platform announced the introduction of pause ads into its SSP.