Engadget: Perplexity is building a browser in part to collect customer data for targeted ads. “AI company Perplexity announced in February that it was building its own browser called Comet. In a recent interview with the TBPN podcast, CEO Aravind Srinivas gave some insight as to why the business appeared to be branching out from its artificial intelligence focus: It’s to collect user data and […]
#AdTargeting
Another day, another attempt by Microsoft to extract as much revenue as possible from Office users:
"Microsoft has quietly launched a new version of Microsoft Office for Windows that can be used to edit documents for free, no Microsoft 365 subscription or Office license key required. This free version of Office is based on the full desktop apps, but has most features locked behind the Microsoft 365 subscription.
First spotted by Beebom, the free version of Office for Windows includes ads that are permanently on screen when within a document in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Additionally, this new free version of Office also only allows you to save files to OneDrive, meaning no support for editing local files.
To access the free version of Office, just skip the prompt to sign-in when you first run an Office app. From there, you will be given the choice to continue to use Office for free in exchange for ads and limited features. In this mode, you can open, view, and even edit documents, just like you can with the web version of Office."
#Microsoft #AdTech #Advertising #Surveillance #AdTargeting #AdTracking #MSOffice
"A global spy tool exposed the locations of billions of people to anyone willing to pay. A Catholic group bought location data about gay dating app users in an effort to out gay priests. A location data broker sold lists of people who attended political protests.
What do these privacy violations have in common? They share a source of data that’s shockingly pervasive and unregulated: the technology powering nearly every ad you see online.
Each time you see a targeted ad, your personal information is exposed to thousands of advertisers and data brokers through a process called “real-time bidding” (RTB). This process does more than deliver ads—it fuels government surveillance, poses national security risks, and gives data brokers easy access to your online activity. RTB might be the most privacy-invasive surveillance system that you’ve never heard of."
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/01/online-behavioral-ads-fuel-surveillance-industry-heres-how
#Privacy #Surveillance #CyberSecurity #AdTargeting #DataProtection #DataBrokers #DataBrokerage #RTB
Amazon DSP enhances display ad targeting with fold position controls: Amazon DSP launches new targeting features for display and native inventory, expanding advertiser control over ad placements. https://ppc.land/amazon-dsp-enhances-display-ad-targeting-with-fold-position-controls/ #AmazonDSP #DigitalMarketing #AdTargeting #DisplayAds #NativeAdvertising
Reddit clarifies subreddit ad targeting: Reddit explains subreddit ad targeting reaches engaged users across the platform, not just within specific communities. https://ppc.land/reddit-clarifies-subreddit-ad-targeting/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #Reddit #AdTargeting #Marketing #DigitalMarketing #SocialMediaMarketing
YouTube expands First Position ad targeting to all content in DV360: Google broadens availability of First Position ads on YouTube, allowing advertisers to reach target audiences across all content types. https://ppc.land/youtube-expands-first-position-ad-targeting-to-all-content-in-dv360/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #YouTubeMarketing #DigitalAdvertising #PPC #DV360 #AdTargeting
Google expands Privacy Sandbox: 90-day interest groups, deals, and click data: Google extends Privacy Sandbox interest group lifetime to 90 days, adds deal support and click data for improved ad targeting. https://ppc.land/google-expands-privacy-sandbox-90-day-interest-groups-deals-and-click-data/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #PrivacySandbox #GoogleAds #AdTargeting #DigitalMarketing #OnlinePrivacy
Yahoo expands identity solutions to CTV and publishers, boosting ad targeting: Yahoo enhances digital advertising capabilities with Identity Solutions for CTV and expanded publisher availability via major SSPs. https://ppc.land/yahoo-expands-identity-solutions-to-ctv-and-publishers-boosting-ad-targeting/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #Yahoo #DigitalAdvertising #CTV #AdTargeting #IdentitySolutions
"A leading political data company is selling a voter database that identifies Americans based on their support for right-wing militias, the QAnon conspiracy theory and the January 6 insurrection — a new twist in campaign technology that some experts think could carry national security risks.
The company, L2 Data, collects a wide net of information about voter preferences on issues such as defense, spending and the economy. But unlike other data companies, L2 also measures or estimates voters’ support for the most divisive and potentially threatening threads of the extreme right.
L2 says it developed its dataset by surveying some voters and then extrapolating the probable views of a wider group with similar preferences and behavior from voter records and consumer habits.
Those predictions are part of a larger dataset that included a broad range of views held by both the right and left, on issues such as climate change, race and civil liberties.
The firm sells that broad set of information to a range of politicians and parties: Rep. Rob Menendez (D-N.J.), Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), and PACs for both Democrats and Republicans have bought its data, according to FEC filings."
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/30/data-voters-political-violence-00186132
#USA #Politics #Elections #PresidentialElection2024 #FarRight #DataBrokers #AdTech #AdTargeting
#EU #Pinterest #SocialMedia #AdTech #AdTargeting #DataProtection "Today, noyb filed a complaint against the social media platform Pinterest. Most users probably know it as a visual mood board and use it to find ideas and inspiration. Advertisers, on the other hand, use the platform to push their products on consumers. Unsurprisingly, Pinterest’s business model is also based on personalised advertising and the associated user tracking. The problem: Despite a CJEU ruling prohibiting this practice, the platform uses people’s personal data without asking for their consent. Pinterest falsely claims to have a “legitimate interest” and enables tracking by default. Most other websites have abandoned this legally flawed argument years ago."
https://noyb.eu/en/heres-idea-pinterest-ask-users-their-consent-tracking-them
#EU #CJEU #Meta #Facebook #DataProtection #AdTech #AdTargeting: "In today's ruling in C-446/21 (Schrems v. Meta), the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has fully backed a lawsuit brought against Meta, over its Facebook service. The Court decided on two questions: First, massively limiting the use of personal data for online advertisements. Secondly, limiting the use of publicly available personal data to the originally intended purposes for publication."
https://noyb.eu/en/cjeu-meta-must-minimise-use-personal-data-ads
»#Meta faces #dataretentionlimits on its #EU #adbusiness after top court ruling: #socialnetworks, such as Facebook, cannot keep using people’s information for #adtargeting #indefinitely.« https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/04/meta-faces-data-retention-limits-on-its-eu-ad-business-after-top-court-ruling/?eicker.news #tech #media
👉(...)Media giant Cox Media Group (CMG) says it can target adverts based on what potential customers said out loud near device microphones, and explicitly points to Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Bing as CMG partners, according to a CMG presentation obtained by 404 Media.(...)🤯
https://www.404media.co/heres-the-pitch-deck-for-active-listening-ad-targeting/
#adtargeting #listening #smartphone #privacynightmare #gafam
#Surveillance #Privacy #ActiveListening #AdTech #AdTargeting: "Media giant Cox Media Group (CMG) says it can target adverts based on what potential customers said out loud near device microphones, and explicitly points to Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Bing as CMG partners, according to a CMG presentation obtained by 404 Media.
The slide deck provides more information, and raises more questions, about CMG’s advertised capability which it calls Active Listening. In December, 404 Media first reported on Active Listening’s existence using pitches from CMG’s website before the company deleted that information. The presentation, which the company has sent to at least one company it was courting to buy its Active Listening services, shows how CMG was marketing the product to companies who may want to target potential customers based on data allegedly sourced from device microphones. Google has kicked CMG from its advertising Partners Program after 404 Media asked Google for comment on the slide deck.
“The power of voice (and our devices’ microphones),” the slide deck starts. “Smart devices capture real-time intent data by listening to our conversations. Advertisers can pair this voice-data with behavioral data to target in-market consumers. We use AI to collect this data from 470+ sources to improve campaign deployment, targeting and performance.”" https://www.404media.co/heres-the-pitch-deck-for-active-listening-ad-targeting/
How #Advertising Rivals #Google & #FaceBook Teamed Up To Use A #Euphemism In Team Pitches To Target #Unknown Minors ( a supposedly banned #Demographic ) In Secret #AdTargeting Pact
https://on.ft.com/3SRfCr4 via #FinancialTimes #SocialMedia #Zuggerfugger
#SocialMedia #Google #Meta #Instagram #YouTube #Marketing #AdTargeting: "Google and Meta made a secret deal to target advertisements for Instagram to teenagers on YouTube, skirting the search company’s own rules for how minors are treated online.
According to documents seen by the Financial Times and people familiar with the matter, Google worked on a marketing project for Meta that was designed to target 13- to 17-year-old YouTube users with adverts that promoted its rival’s photo and video app.
The Instagram campaign deliberately targeted a group of users labelled as “unknown” in its advertising system, which Google knew skewed towards under-18s, these people said. Meanwhile, documents seen by the FT suggest steps were taken to ensure the true intent of the campaign was disguised.
The project disregarded Google’s rules that prohibit personalising and targeting ads to under-18s, including serving ads based on demographics. It also has policies against the circumvention of its own guidelines, or “proxy targeting”."
https://www.ft.com/content/b3bb80f4-4e01-4ce6-8358-f4f8638790f8
Google will not phase out tracking cookies in Chrome after all
https://stackdiary.com/google-will-not-phase-out-tracking-cookies-in-chrome-after-all/
#Privacy #AdTracking #GoogleChrome #ThirdPartyCookies #OnlinePrivacy #DataCollection #UserControl #PrivacySettings #AdTech #BrowserPrivacy #DigitalPrivacy #UserConsent #PrivacySandbox #TrackingCookies #AdTargeting #PrivacyTools #DataProtection #UserChoice #BrowserSettings #PrivacyExtensions #UserData #OnlineSecurity #AdTransparency #UserRights #PrivacyControls #DataPrivacy #BrowserTracking
#DataProtection #Privacy #DataBrokers #DataBrokerage #AdTargeting: "Overall, the evolving awareness about inaccuracies is prompting questions about whether most of the industry — particularly so-called third-party data brokers who do not have direct relationships with consumers the way Meta or Google do — can survive under the current business models, as privacy regulation proliferates and marketers begin to wake up to the problem.
Even the top privacy official for one of the world’s largest third-party data brokers, Acxiom, acknowledges that the inferences the company sells are not always correct.
“We want to be as accurate as possible, but our inferences, all they are, are informed guesses,” Acxiom’s chief privacy officer, Jordan Abbott, said in an interview with Recorded Future News at an industry conference last month.
Inaccurate inferences used to determine significant health and financial decisions are for more worrying to him than those used for advertising, Abbott said."
#EU #DataProtection #DSA #AdTargeting #LinkedIn #Surveillance #Privacy: "Under pressure from civil society and the European Commission’s DSA enforcement arm, LinkedIn has deprecated the targeting of adverts based on sensitive personal data of users on its platform. This change addresses the concerns that EDRi and our partners Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (GFF), Global Witness and Bits of Freedom had raised that this kind of targeting infringes the DSA’s new prohibition of targeting online adverts based on profiling with such sensitive categories of personal data.
We provided evidence to the Commission showing how the fact that advertisers on LinkedIn are allowed to target their users based on LinkedIn group names can contain or reveal sensitive categories of personal data such as sexuality, political opinions, or race, something that is expressly prohibited under the DSA:"
https://edri.org/our-work/privacy-win-linkedin-limits-ad-targeting-after-edri-complaint/
#AdTech #Privacy #Cookies #AdTargeting #DataProtection: "In a little-noticed change at the end of last year, thousands of websites started being more transparent about how many companies your data is being shared with. In November, those infuriating cookie pop-ups—which ask your permission to collect and share data—began sharing how many advertising “partners” each website is working with, giving a further glimpse of the sprawling advertising ecosystem. For many sites, it’s not pretty.
A WIRED analysis of the top 10,000 most popular websites shows that dozens of sites say they are sharing data with more than 1,000 companies, while thousands of other websites are sharing data with hundreds of firms. Quiz and puzzle website JetPunk tops the pile, listing 1,809 “partners” that may collect personal information, including “browsing behavior or unique IDs.”" https://www.wired.com/story/cookie-pop-up-ad-tech-partner-top-websites/
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