Ad decisioning used to solely happen in ad servers. Then it moved to the browser with the advent of header bidding. Now there is a prototype, Trusted Server, that is attempting to swing ad auctions back to a server – but a “trusted” one.
And the room in which the ad auction happens matters.
When code is on page, the companies making the bid requests (usually SSPs) have much greater visibility into what is going on with the page, from being able to sync cookies to being able to observe the ad environment.
Such information would be more walled off in a server environment, which prompted social media debate by a prominent detractor –the co-founder of Sincera, the The Trade Desk’s newly acquired company that analyzes ad tech metadata.
On this week’s podcast, we get into why this Trusted Server prototype generated so much controversy.
Then, it’s time to reflect on consumer privacy. One critique of the Trusted Server prototype, for example, was how it might pass on info that could be used for fingerprinting, as well as how it would manage consent. Ensuring ad tech meets privacy regulations, as well as consumers’ expectation of data privacy, should be a requirement – not a differentiator.
Our managing editor Allison Schiff observes that advertising companies are being encouraged to position privacy as a differentiator, instead of a baseline standard that everyone should meet. We take the lid off the simmering controversy over how the industry should address consumer privacy. Along the way, we leave some time to point out the hypocritical positioning that often happens when companies promote privacy-first stances without being able to fully back them up.
