Cookieless Newsroom: Google’s Regulatory Hurdles

Last Updated on: 10th October 2024, 03:12 pm

This edition of the Cookieless Newsroom highlights regulatory positions on Google’s revised approach to Chrome third-party cookie depreciation, outlines planned improvements to the Privacy Sandbox, and reviews the high-profile trial between Google and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which has drawn significant attention across the adtech industry.

Navigate to the hottest topics:

• Privacy Sandbox has announced a series of improvements to its Protected Audience API. – 18 Sep
• The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has released an official statement on how Google’s July third-party cookie decision affects the preexisting commitments between the CMA and Google. – 24 Sep
• The DOJ vs. Google adtech trial has concluded for now and will reconvene in late November for closing arguments. – 27 Sep

• 4 October 2024: The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that Meta must comply with the GDPR’s “data minimization” principle, meaning it cannot process user data for targeting indefinitely and must establish finite retention periods for its operations within the EU. [NOYB website]
• 27 September 2024: The Google vs. DOJ adtech antitrust trial in Virginia has concluded. A two-month break will follow before closing arguments, which are scheduled for late November. Judge Brinkema is expected to issue a ruling in early 2025. [AdExchanger]
• 25 September 2024: Nyob has submitted a complaint to European regulators regarding Firefox’s implementation of its new Privacy Preserving Attribution (PPA) by default, alleging that it was done without obtaining prior explicit consent from users. [Techcrunch]
• 24 September 2024: After gathering feedback from stakeholders, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has raised ongoing competition concerns about Google’s revised approach. Consequently, the CMA plans to update its commitments with Google and will release these updates for public consultation in Q4 2024. [Gov.uk]
• 23 September 2024: EU officials are reportedly preparing formal charges against Google for violating the Digital Markets Act. [AdExchanger]
• 18 September 2024: Google has proposed divesting AdX in an attempt to appease European regulators, but the proposal has been rejected by European publishers as “insufficient.” [Reuters]
• 18 September 2024: Chrome has announced new upcoming features of its Protected Audience API, adding enhanced deal support, new “clickiness” signals for bidding (commented on by RTB House’s CCO Mike Lamb in the linked article), and extending the interest group lifespan from 30 to 90 days. [Privacy Sandbox]
• 13 September 2024: EU antitrust officials are reportedly preparing to fine Google for anti-competitive practices in its adtech business. However, contrary to earlier rumors, they are not expected to order a breakup of the company at this stage. [Reuters]
• 12 September 2024: Google Ads has introduced Trusted Execution Environment (TEE)-based confidential matching, which securely derives aggregated audience and conversion data from advertisers’ first-party data. The solution is designed to prevent data leakages and external IDs may be used, but only within a first-party context. Google is collaborating with the IAB Tech Lab’s privacy-enhancing technology working group and has made the TEE architecture publicly available. [Google Blog]

See also: Your Guide to Protected Audience API

• 9 September 2024: The DOJ vs. Google adtech trial has officially started in Virginia. The DOJ accuses Google of using its control over the adtech stack, engaging in anticompetitive acquisitions, employing exclusionary tactics, self-preferencing in ad auctions, and leveraging data dominance to maintain its market position. Google, in response, claims the adtech market is competitive, with many ads being sold outside its ecosystem. [Digiday]
• 6 September 2024: The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has provisionally found that Google abused its dominant position through its publisher ad server and buying tools. Allegations include giving AdX preferential access to advertisers using Google Ads, manipulating advertiser bids to favor AdX in auctions over rival exchanges, and allowing DoubleClick For Publishers to prioritize AdX auctions. The CMA is awaiting Google’s response before making a final decision. [Gov.uk]

• 5 September 2024: AppsFlyer has integrated with the Android Attribution Reporting API, claiming to be the first mobile measurement partner (MMP) to do so for a generally available in-market product. Unity supported the integration, and Unity Ads will be the first to benefit from it. However, broader adoption by other ad networks is still needed to provide accurate last-click attribution. [AdExchanger]
• 30 August 2024: Criteo’s CEO has announced plans to step down within the next 12 months, leading to speculation about a potential sale of the company. Possible buyers being mentioned include The Trade Desk (TTD), Microsoft, Walmart, Publicis Groupe, and GroupM. [Digiday]
• 26 August 2024: Netflix has entered the data clean room space by integrating with InfoSum, Snowflake, and LiveRamp. These integrations aim to facilitate secure data collaboration while maintaining privacy standards. [AdExchanger]