privacy regulators

Former Texas privacy enforcer Tyler Bridegan breaks down how regulators decide which companies to target – and how a little common sense can keep you off their radar.

AppLovin may be facing heat over its data privacy practices, but soaring profits and big AI ad bets have investors cheering anyway.

There’s a reason ad tech is no longer in a position to self regulate. Somewhere along the way, companies forgot to respect their consumers and so regulators stepped in.

You know that old saw about how regulators aren’t technical and don’t understand how online advertising works? Yeah, that’s not a thing anymore.

Even companies that make good-faith efforts to comply with data protection laws can unwittingly end up with front-row seats to the privacy theater.

Bringing data ethics into the marketing department is good for an org’s bottom line, says Jamie Barnard, Unilever’s former general counsel focused on global marketing, and now the CEO of a new privacy compliance startup called (natch) Compliant.

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Allison Schiff, senior editor at AdExchanger. It’s part of a series of perspectives from AdExchanger’s editorial team. When the big platforms say “jump,” the ad industry warily asks, “how high?” Apple […]

The Federal Trade Commission is recruiting ad tech experts. Specifically, the FTC is looking for two people to gather and analyze information on digital advertising markets to inform how the agency and other policymakers think about policy development and enforcement as they consider potential consumer threats. Usually, the agency relies on a stable of economists […]

Privacy regulations have the potential to consolidate market share among large technology platforms. Aka, when publishers reduce the number of ad tech, audience measurement and other web technology vendors they work with, Google and Facebook win, according to new academic research examining the unintended consequences of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The skittishness with […]

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) grabs most of the attention, but other state privacy laws are cropping up across the nation. More than a dozen states either have new data protection regulations on the books or in committee, from Nevada, Maine, Pennsylvania and Connecticut to Massachusetts, New Jersey, Illinois and Maryland, said Gary Kibel, […]

There aren’t a lot of companies that can take a multibillion-dollar fine from the Federal Trade Commission in stride – and fewer still whose stock actually rises on the news. But that’s Facebook for you, whose stock went up 1.8% at the close of trading last week after reports that the FTC is planning a $5 […]

Bonjour, GDPR enforcement. Google and Facebook may have bullseyes on their backs in Europe, but it’s two mid-sized French startups that received the first warning shots from the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) – and that shouldn’t be surprising. “GDPR is not just there for the big guys,” said Ronan Tigner, an associate at Morrison […]

Google was hit with a $5.1 billion fine by the European Union on Wednesday for antitrust practices around the Android mobile operating system – a move that underscores Europe’s willingness to issue steep financial penalties for bad behavior. And there’s another bludgeon in the EU’s cache that Google – and the advertising world in general […]

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) may have originated in Europe, but its reach and influence stretches across the globe, including to the US. For example, it’s actually easier for large enterprises to apply standards globally. Having already made a major effort to comply with GDPR for EU citizen data, it’s only logical to stay […]

Advertising trade groups are seizing the political moment in a bid to dismantle the Federal Communications Commission’s recently passed broadband consumer privacy laws. With the commission on the cusp of a Republican majority – Chairman Tom Wheeler has said he’ll step down on inauguration day – the writing could be on the wall for the FCC’s […]

Although Opera Mediaworks is no longer packing its bags and moving to China, newly minted CEO Will Kassoy is still bullish on the opportunity there. “China is a huge market for advertising,” said Kassoy, who took the reins from former company chief Mahi de Silva in December after roughly two years as CMO. Kassoy joined […]

Deals fall through all the time. But the failed acquisition of Opera’s ad business could be a signal that China’s western buying spree is liable to hit a few regulatory snags. In February, a consortium of Chinese companies, which comprises mobile game maker Kunlun and security software provider Qihoo, announced its intention to buy up all of […]

Companies like Google and Facebook arguably have access to far more consumer data than Internet service providers. So why does the Federal Communications Commission call out the broadband guys in its privacy proposal? The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law addressed that question at a hearing on Wednesday. The meeting was to discuss […]

Technology is advancing so rapidly that industries have little time to update their privacy policies to comply with social norms, regulations and legislation, said Trevor Hughes, president and CEO of the International Association for Privacy Professionals (IAPP). Rapid technological development leads to what Hughes calls a public policy gap, where the leading edge of technology […]

Facebook’s Atlas ad server allows advertisers to target Facebook users not just on Facebook.com, but across the web and app ecosystem. Once a user has logged into Facebook on a device, Atlas can find the user and serve ads just for that person. When he or she acts on the ad, Atlas ties that back to […]