We opened 2022 with an episode that offered a rundown on three pressing legal issues in digital advertising.
At the time, Google had just made its motion to dismiss the Texas-led antitrust lawsuit scrutinizing its ads business. It wasn’t until September, nine months later, that the courts finally responded. Although a judge ruled that the larger case can proceed, Google succeeded in getting the Jedi Blue portion of the lawsuit dismissed, which covered its deal with Meta.
In the second half of the episode, the team does a rundown of the California Privacy Rights Act, or CPRA, a “more toothy version of the CCPA.” The law will go into effect in just days – on January 1, 2023 – and it includes a lookback window to the beginning of 2022.
Finally, January 2022 was also when the Banning Surveillance Advertising Act (BSAA) was introduced in the House. But since then, the BSAA hasn’t made headlines or moved forward. Now, a new Congress would have to take it on, and our frank assessment is that this bill is a goner.
2022 was a busy year for data privacy, and this episode is worth a relisten. But “busy” is a relative term when it comes to lawsuits and the law, which moves at a far slower pace of change than the world of digital advertising. Almost one year later, the Texas lawsuit has only inched forward, the Banning Surveillance Advertising Act has simply disappeared and the CPRA is finally ready to make its debut after first passing in 2020.
