Data + Privacy

The advertising industry has a relatability problem. Don’t just take it from me. Look at how the industry talks about itself. “I’m going to talk about a few problems that folks might find relatable,” said one startup founder at a LiveRamp-hosted AI demo day that took place adjacent to last week’s Advertising Week New York […]

Infillion’s acquisition of Foursquare is the latest sign that the ad tech market is reorganizing around companies that can combine data, media execution and measurement within a single platform.  The strategic rationale is clear: Foursquare brings a substantial location intelligence business, while Infillion already owns MediaMath and has expanded its data capabilities through Gimbal and […]

Apple has a new block list for data brokers and ad tech vendors that do cross-site user tracking – which could expand to include a much broader slate of ad tech and martech vendors across the entire ecosystem. Plus: a few thoughts on Advertising Week New York.

An AI agent can stay inside its budget and still spend too much. It can buy on signals from known sources. It can act within the authority it was given. It can log every decision. But the evidence can still arrive after the money is committed. In three previous pieces, I argued that agents need […]

Buyer beware: The sins of digital display and the reckoning of impression viewability are coming back to haunt the podcast advertising industry.  I stopped buying display advertising in 2016, and viewability was a big part of why. Advertisers had spent years buying impressions before it became evident that an ad being served didn’t mean a […]

Editor’s note: After this column published, AdExchanger reported that Apple’s WebKit blocklist has expanded well beyond the initial handful of companies — potentially to hundreds of ad tech, martech and data vendors. Read more. When Apple’s AppTrackingTransparency framework took effect in April 2021 with the release of iOS 14.5, the ad industry treated it like […]

Is the open web growing, dying or transforming? Plus: Apple’s iOS update is blocking The Trade Desk from serving ads on Safari browsers, and how that fits into programmatic’s next chapter.

Let’s talk acquisitions! The WarnerMount merger is close to being in the clear, after California and 11 other states settled their antitrust lawsuit against the merger. Plus: Taboola bought Dianomi. Infillion bought Foursquare. We get into what all three of these companies will look like post-acquisition.

The California legislature has passed the compromise version of SB-690, leaving most of the private right of action provisions of the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) in place. Thanks to massive lobbying efforts by Big Tech, other states have lost out on their own opportunities for privacy laws enforceable by individuals via civil lawsuits. […]

Everybody wants to make the most of agentic AI in advertising. The winners will do it with purpose. Here’s how to make a plan, step by step. Get specific Pick a clear goal. A media buying agency might aim to reduce the cost of producing an approved campaign plan by 25% within 90 days, while […]