Technology

“Standard advertising services” shouldn’t include recording intimate patient-doctor conversations to help drug companies guide doctors on how to push opioids.

In short, does the Privacy Sandbox work? In the Tech Lab’s view: No. But whether these APIs work or not is a deceptively slippery question, because it depends on your definition of “work.”

Viant announced AI updates to its existing data platform, including the rollout of its Chat with Data tool. The tool delivers data reports and analysis directly to marketers, nixing the need for business intelligence analysts, data scientists or SQL knowledge.

In today’s newsletter: The FTC is suing Kochava (again); marketers are complacent about third-party cookie deprecation; and Publicis Health pays the piper for its role in the opioid epidemic.

Bonbon, which officially launched on Monday – wants to reward people for their signups. The company, co-founded by two ad tech vets in July 2022, has a cross-site, single-sign-on service for the 30 publishers in its network.

In today’s newsletter: Nielsen sues VideoAmp alleging patent infringement; Rembrand’s virtual product placements hit social media; and the MOW, CMA and publishers cry foul over the Chrome Privacy Sandbox’s Related Website Sets.

Wall Street wanted profits. Big Tech delivered. That was the case for Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple and – more than any other US tech giant – Amazon.

Meta’s shares surged by nearly 15% after reporting Q4 earnings on Thursday. It was the company’s fourth consecutive quarter of revenue growth, following a dismal 2022.

In today’s newsletter: Netflix is the only profitable streaming service; Meta’s automated support software frustrates advertisers; and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission may designate Amazon a “distributor of goods.”

On Thursday, TEGNA-owned CTV ad platform Premion announced the acquisition of Octillion Media, a DSP launched in 2019 to serve local CTV ad buyers. Premion declined to disclose the terms of the deal.

After going through denial and anger over the death of third-party cookies, the ad tech industry enters the bargaining stage. Plus, top takeaways from the FTC’s first-ever AI tech summit.

Are the big players building a more privacy-friendly advertising ecosystem in the right way? Or are they just cementing their control?

In today’s newsletter: The CMA comes out with an updated evaluation of Chrome’s Privacy Sandbox proposals; the IAB talks Privacy Sandbox with Google; and Temu may be a shell company, but its ad spend keeps skyrocketing.

Google has always been the internet waystation. People arrive to be shuttled someplace else. Increasingly, though, Google is the destination.

Danielle Coffey, CEO and president of the News/Media Alliance, believes journalism and generative AI can play nice. But first, gen-AI companies must get real about the value journalism brings to their products.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Arc Of History The Browser Company is backed by tech elite like Instacart CEO Fidji Simo, Medium founder Ev Williams, Zoom founder and CEO Eric Yuan and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. TBC makes a browser called Arc, and this week it launched […]

The industry is “at a critical inflection point in our digital evolution,” David Cohen told attendees at the 1,200-person-strong Annual Leadership Meeting in Florida on Monday.

Fyllo will shift its focus from targeted ad compliance in highly regulated verticals – namely, legalized weed – to more general contextual targeting. The company is also rebranding as Fyllo|Semasio.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Prime Time Ads have arrived on Prime Video.  But audiences have just about had it with streaming services that nickel-and-dime them, The Wall Street Journal reports. Instead of forking over an additional $3 per month to avoid ads, many have canceled their Amazon […]

Last week, FTC Chair Lina Khan announced a probe into Big Tech’s relationship with generative AI companies at an FTC forum to address competition concerns related to AI technology – its first AI-focused tech summit.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Reg-U-Later Apple has a history of not quite breaching antitrust rulings, but blithely flaunting orders.  In 2022, for example, a Dutch court ruled Apple must allow payment alternatives. Apple paid 5 million euros per week in noncompliance fines over months. It eventually acquiesced […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Board Games The LG Ads board of directors has three new members. Or, more accurately, two previous board members – Alphonso co-founders Ashish Chordia and Lampros Kalampoukas, who were fired as part of an orchestrated corporate coup in late December 2022 – have […]

Although Optable participated in the W3C Privacy Sandbox working groups and has been testing Sandbox API integrations for the past eight months, its early access program represents its first foray into running real campaigns.

It takes a publisher around six weeks on average to test and deploy a new identity solution, not to mention the maintenance they have to do over time. No wonder publishers are stressed out.

Rather than a competitor to data clean rooms, Amazon Web Services – which has a data clean room offering of its own – considers itself to be a facilitator of ad tech companies, says Adam Solomon, global head of biz dev and go-to-market for AWS Clean Rooms. Guess there are no competitors in ad tech, only frenemies.

To better service clients – and help with its own bottom line – Havas Media Network is pushing into specialty services.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Ring Airer Netflix is paying more than $5 billion for the rights to livestream “WWE Raw,” Variety reports. The 10-year deal is effective starting next January and represents Netflix’s biggest push into live content. Following a live sports debut with its “Netflix Cup” […]

Index Marketplaces activates the curation capabilities of DSPs, DMPs and RMNs – and the demand for their PMP deals – across Index Exchange’s network of publishers.

DEI is increasingly coming under scrutiny from activists and politicians. But some minority-owned and -targeted media and advertising businesses are thriving despite the increasingly fraught atmosphere around DEI initiatives.

Crunchtime The EU’s Digital Markets Act has teeth – and now it’s biting, TechCrunch reports. The DMA regulates anti-competitive practices within “gatekeeper platforms” that have an annual turnover of at least 7.5 billion euros. Meta, Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft and ByteDance all tick that box. Gatekeepers have until March to ensure their operations in the EU […]