Joe Biden needs to hire an Ad Tech Czar
When it comes to regulation, the US is leading from behind
The Feds are all over the big platforms, and this time, well, it’s serious. Watch out Big Tech. After all, let’s look at the track record to date:
The Department of Justice is looking to break up Google, 15 years after it purchased DoubleClick and a dozen years after its Invite Media deal because they are worried that OpenX’s business will never recover
The DOJ also forced Facebook to pay a $115,000 fine for selling discriminatory ad products
The FTC continues to sue Facebook (after having to narrow the scope of the suit) because of how the company severely limited competition in social media - by acquiring Instagram in 2012
A bunch of state attorney generals sued Google over its alleged monopolistic search practices, just as the duopoly shows signs of cracking and TikTok and ChatGTP threaten to steal search share.
Congress thought really hard about passing a national privacy bill, before leaving that sort of work to - Connecticut
Don’t forget - the FTC forced Facebook to sell off Giphy, lest it allow the company to establish complete dominance over the lucrative gif marketplace
Ok, so this list isn’t super impressive for FTC Commissioner Lina (No Wrath of) Khan and the folks at the DOJ. But at least they nailed Meta with a $400 billion fine for violating GDPR.
Oh wait, that was Europe. Right, the European Union actually passed GDPR, a massive piece of privacy legislation which forced every digital company in the world to change their consent practices, fined a bunch of brands and even forced some ad tech companies out of business.
It’s not just the EU. The UK forced Google to delay its cookie shutdown. France fined Google and Criteo. Ireland even does stuff.
In the US - well, we did crack down on Kim Kardashian’s wildly unregulated native ads business.
This is - rather pathetic for the Greatest Country in the World.
Something needs to change. I’d suggest it’s well past time that the Biden Administration post a job on the AdExchanger boards. The US needs an Ad Tech Czar.
“We are so far behind on privacy and anti-trust in this sector,” said Mike Zaneis, CEO of Trustworthy Accountability Group and former general counsel for the IAB. “And with all these new state laws coming into effect, it’s going to be a mess managing this industry.”
Zaneis noted that the DOJ’s recent antitrust actions demonstrate that Washington is getting much smarter on these issues and how the digital advertising supply chain operates. “The idea of centralizing this knowledge in a body that can be responsive to market realities, whether we need new federal privacy regulations, more data access and transparency, or market incentives to support American innovation, is intriguing.”
Someone needs to step up. The question is - who?
Next in Marketing is hosted in partnership with Adelaide, the leading attention measurement company. Don’t rely on 50% in view for 1 second to drive advertising impact. Adelaide’s omnichannel metric is used by some of the world’s largest brands to measure media quality, optimize towards placements that capture more attention, and most importantly, achieve better business outcomes.
Before I get to who - it’s fair to ask - why hire this person? What’s the point?
Well, it seems clear to me that lawmakers don’t understand the tech business overall - and to be fair, many of them are on the older side, and don’t spend their days reading TechCrunch.
And if you don’t necessarily understand how Facebook, Snap, Google and other tech titan’s businesses word, how are you going to understand the ad tech underneath their hoods. Consider that many people who work in advertising barely understand the Lumascape - because this stuff is hard and complicated and nuanced. I’ve covered this business for decades, and I only understand so much - simply because I don’t use - and certainly don’t build - DSPs, SSPs and the like.
DC needs someone who’s had their hands on keyboards, and has done the extremely hardcore work of coding ad technology.
This person also needs to be a big picture thinker who understands the ad industry, the broader media business and the global economy as well. Plus they need to be an excellent communicator.
“You’d want somebody equally strong on both the ad and the tech,” said former IAB staffer Brad Berens, who runs Big Digital Idea Consulting & Center for the Digital Future. “Knowing how the poop runs through the pipes is only half the challenge. The other half, the ad half, requires understanding how media agencies and particularly brands think.”
On the other hand, several ad executives I spoke to took the other view - as in, ‘bad idea Mike.” One ad tech veteran said he doubted that monitoring ad tech would ever gain the support or profile needed in Washington, compared to say, tech’s impact on teenage mental health. Another executive said that he doubted such a hire would be able to have any real power - “what are the odds they would achieve what we want them to achieve?”
Very fair points. Would such an executive be able to make the gears of Washington move faster? Surely not. But he or she could recognize problems and challenges much quicker (like say, back in 2016 when Google - in broad daylight- forces everyone to use its own ad tech to buy YouTube - TubeMogul even ran ads calling this an anti-trust move - and nothing happens).
This Czar could also push lawmakers to get things in motion to pass regulations or bills that will actually have an impact - not a decade after anti-trust damage has been done.
Just as an example - in my recent podcast interview with Insider Intelligence’s Andrew Lipsman - he noted that Amazon commands 77% of the $45 billion Retail Media market. Now, given that Instacart and Walmart are scaling so quickly, this may not be an immediate problem competitively, but Lipsman did predict that someone will come along and build a Retail Media rollup of sorts, since the category is likely to get too crowded too fast.
Should the US act to regulate Retail Media yet? It’s probably too soon, but this is the kind of thing regulators should be on top of while it’s happening, not 10 years later. By the way, how are retailers like Walmart, Amazon, Target and others not violating the same GDRP statue that Facebook got dinged for? Can consumers use Amazon or Walmart.com without getting targeted ads? Should that be an option. These are questions for the Czar.
To be clear, this isn’t just about getting somebody in the administration so we can nail more companies behaving badly. This theoretical person would also be tasked with helping ensure that any potential legislation aimed at helping consumers doesn’t go way too far - and wipes out small businesses along the way.
My point is, if we don’t have someone like this working for the Feds, American businesses and citizens are just going to be waiting around for other world leaders to act. Which seems fairly UnAmerican.
Now, the fun part. Who should get the job? I have my theories. What about you?