13 months of Google's search data is worth roughly 17 years of Bing's search data. That helps to explain why Google's search business is now under pressure from: the DOJ's antitrust remedy, the EU's Digital Markets Act, the UK's CMA, & the proposed US SEARCH Act. tinyurl.com/4czehcyy

Who likes cookie banners? Does anyone? The EU Commission was looking to get rid of them and turn Europe into a shining Utopia. But as legend has it, Google got in the way. monopoly-report.com/p/europe-hat...

Europe Hates Cookie Banners

Here's why quitting EU cookie consents is complicated

monopoly-report.com

Is it possible for Google to share search data with rivals in a privacy-safe way? Google seems to believe the answer is a hard no! I welcome @alissacooper.bsky.social from KGI to discuss. Here's a quick overview - the episode drops on Wednesday Aug 5. This week's @monopolyreport.bsky.social

Is it possible for Google to share search data with rivals in a privacy-safe way? Google seems to believe the answer is a hard no! I welcome @alissacooper.bsky.social from KGI to discuss. Here's a quick overview - the episode drops on Wednesday Aug 5. This week's @monopolyreport.bsky.social

Who likes cookie banners? Does anyone? The EU Commission was looking to get rid of them and turn Europe into a shining Utopia. But as legend has it, Google got in the way. monopoly-report.com/p/europe-hat...

Europe Hates Cookie Banners

Here's why quitting EU cookie consents is complicated

monopoly-report.com

Andy Dale is my guest this week on @monopolyreport.bsky.social podcast. We discuss some of the transition taking place in our industry trade bodies - and point to a more collaborative path forward for the trades. tinyurl.com/5xfaakuy

After spending 15 telling everyone that fingerprinting is horrible for privacy, Google is launching a set of fingerprinting tool in Europe. Chutzpah aside, it's a smart move.... tinyurl.com/42up24up

Google’s new use of IPs in Europe

Google’s “IP-based” measurement and personalization in Europe is a liability play

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Martin Thomson is a distinguished engineer at @mozilla.org and a key player in the @w3c.bsky.social Attribution Spec which is out for public comment. In this clip, I ask Martin whether some of the PETs being used are making a meaningful impact in the minds of consumers.

OpenAI's strategy is an enigma - with three huge (potentially contradictory) forces in play: 1. OpenAI needs ad revenue 2. OpenAI is planning to pivot from chat, which seems to be OpenAI’s most obvious ad surface. 3. OpenAI's Ad principles were served to create trust. Can they be cast aside?

Not for nothing folks, but at this point, the "future viability of the DPF cross-border data transfer program" is probably the least of our worries.

Being a cynic is easy. Hats off to someone willing to stare down insurmountable challenges Cindy Cohn is the former Executive Director of @eff.org - and her work over the past quarter century ensuring civil liberties is nothing short of astonishing. Cindy joined me on my pod tinyurl.com/385yzb6e

Episode 78: Privacy’s Defender Cindy Cohn on Encryption, Surveillance, Privacy Rights, and the Future of Digital Freedom

Alan Chapell sits down with Cindy Cohn, former Executive Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and author of Privacy’s Defender. They discuss the landmark Bernstein encryption case, the...

tinyurl.com

Robert Moses never held office and never passed a law. But he recognized that infrastructure is Policy. Those of us in the ads space would be well served to learn from the lessons taught by Moses monopoly-report.com/p/the-many-r...

The Many Road(s) to Ad Revenue

Infrastructure is policy. Who is building it in ad tech?

monopoly-report.com

If you are reading this, it's pretty clear which party you've chosen. Yet.... I'm struggling to grok how these became our only two party options. www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

It's Saturday Night. You have a choice as between: (1) a party that is pretty dead and where you don't know many people, and (2) a lively party where the host has invited racists, misogynists,...

It's Saturday Night. You have a choice as between: (1) a party that is pretty dead and where you don't know many people, and (2) a lively party where the host has invited racists, misogynists, and per...

linkedin.com

This week I sat down with journalist/entrepreneur John Battelle — co-founder of Wired, founder of The Industry Standard. I love that I get to chat with people who are asking some of the same questions as me - but coming at them from an entirely different perspective. tinyurl.com/2s49vsy8

Episode 76: John Battelle on AI, Data Ownership and the Future of the Open Internet

Alan Chapell sits down with journalist, entrepreneur, and Wired co-founder John Battelle for a deep discussion on AI, privacy, data ownership, publishing, and the future of the internet. They unpack t...

tinyurl.com

My PSA to all the (big) tech engineers and privacy-pros who are singing the praises of Privacy Enhancing Technologies..... And some great research from @garjoh.bsky.social and @buquestrom.bsky.social!! This week's @monopolyreport.bsky.social monopoly-report.com/p/pets-what-...

PETs! What Are They Good For? (Anything?)

PETs should be tied to specific outcomes and allow for third-party validation of key claims.

monopoly-report.com

There's no shortage of meaty problems to solve for as the ads space moves into our agentic future. In this week's @monopolyreport.bsky.social , I make that case that one of agentic's bigger challenges lay in a key component of privacy law. tinyurl.com/ykxvn3za

Agentic's Biggest Obstacle

There are lots of challenges, but the biggest one just might be privacy law

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What is the "Attribution Cartel"? Don Marti has been active within the W3C. Per Don, the Attribution Cartel is a group of companies and browsers attempting to determine who gets access to the critical data that helps advertisers determine whether their campaigns are working tinyurl.com/3vyr4abu

The Chapell Regulatory Insider for April just dropped. And like some indie rock band from the 90's, it's going to make some noise. Check out a trial sub and see for yourself. chapellreport.substack.com

@mozilla.org is trying to compete on privacy in a browser marketplace that is dominated by Big Tech. Ajit Varma and Kush Amlani join me on a recent @monopolyreport.bsky.social pod to explain how. Kush shares how privacy is used as a shield to prevent competition. tinyurl.com/y89b3h2u

It was a huge honor to host FTC Commissioner Mark Meador at Marketecture Live in NYC last month. We got into a number of huge topics impacting the ads space. Here is clip where the Commissioner discusses some of the challenges re: untangling a monopolist from a marketplace. tinyurl.com/88jjtss6

Mark Naples and I started our respective businesses a little over 20 years ago and have regularly compared notes on how to grow and stay relevant in the digital media space. We come at this from a diff perspective, but found ourselves in the same room as industry self-reg was taking off.

Is the Global Privacy Control anti-competitive? Given all we've learned over the last ten years about the economics of browsers, it is huge mistake to require the marketplace to support these signals without setting up competitive guard rails. monopoly-report.com/p/are-gpc-si...

Are GPC Signals Anti-Competitive?

I think so

monopoly-report.com

I don't like the term "surveillance advertising" but it becomes way more difficult to push back on such terms when there are companies in our industry who are helping the U.S. government surveil. @monopolyreport.bsky.social podcast with Allison Schiff from @adexchanger.com. tinyurl.com/3hsdk79w

Poor DSAR response processes & misconfigured CMPs pose two of the biggest regulatory risks for digital media companies right now - particularly adtechs. It's a shame given that both are fairly easy to fix. monopoly-report.com/p/the-dilemm...

The Dilemma of the DSAR DMV

Honoring user choice shouldn't be so hard

monopoly-report.com

Regulatory Question of the Week. Are all adtech companies joint controllers of EU personal data?

Looking forward to taking over the main stage this morning at Marketecture Live. I'll be doing a fireside chat with FTC Commissioner Mark Meador to get his take on the future of industry self regulation, the viability of cookie opt out tools and the current trajectory of AI use in the ads space.

The move to agentic will change the data business in ways that very few around here have grappled with. On this week's @monopolyreport.bsky.social, I evaluate "compliance inputs" - tools which can be used as part of agentic frameworks to assess data vendors. tinyurl.com/32ccyww9

Agentic's Big Gaping Hole

Robots won't fix what's wrong in the ads space without help.

monopoly-report.com

Per Wendy Davis: "Virginia's unanimously passed a bill banning the sale of precise location data. What's the next domino to fall? How many years does the precise location data space have at this point? Can some of the 40 Cali registered data brokers pivot? www.mediapost.com/publications...

My regulatory question of the week. Lots of intimate data being input into AI chatbots. What happens to that data AFTER input? OpenAI is promising that it won't be used over time to create profiles for advertising. But having it used for advertising might be the least of your concerns....

Here are some regulatory questions for the week of Feb 16. Pls share your answers. chapellreport.substack.com