Google announced in August 2019 that it would be getting rid of third party cookies. This refers to any cross-website tracking, or ad tech used to store user information in order to create targeted advertisements when a user visits your site. This is commonly known Cookie Apocalypse, since ad-tech companies rely on third-party cookies as...
Recent Facebook leaks have prompted an avalanche of suggestions for fixing social media’s negative effects on society. These include demands for increased oversight by executives and boards of companies, regulators, or both. However, these proposals do not address the main problem of the attention-economy, which cannot be fixed by top-down control. The problem lies at...
A report by the Financial Times showed that Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter lost approximately $9.85 billion in revenue due to Apple’s privacy changes. Apple last year announced the App Tracking transparency (ATT) policy, which requires that apps ask permission to track users. In April this year, the policy was finally implemented. Apps can no longer...
Member-Get-Member programs are nothing new. Many companies are using it to get new customers by aksing their customers to advertise. In turn, customers get some benefits. AmEx’s Member-Get-Member program kicked off in 2011 as an easy way for members to refer their friends to AmEx in order to get a reward for doing so. However,...
The days of third-party cookies are over. Google is done with them and announced this on their company blog. But that doesn’t mean that Google will stop collecting your data, nor it will stop using your data to target ads. What Google will do is to stop allowing third-party cookies that collect user data. This...
Facebook’s full-page ad campaign claims that Apple’s new policy, which will ask users to opt-in for tracking, will hurt small businesses. While it cannot be denied that small businesses depend on advertising, Facebook’s monopoly on social media and it’s popularity means that many small businesses depend on Facebook. For example, take a look at the...
Facebook is trying to convince you that it’s a protector of small businesses. Given Facebook’s track record of anticompetitive behavior and privacy issues this is hardly believeable. The main target of Facebook’s new ad campaign is Apple’s App Tracking Transparency feature that Apple has deployed with iOS 14. Instead of letting users being tracked by...
Imagine a web without tracking cookies. Wouldn’t that be nice? You might argue that this isn’t feasible, because for all those nice free content and services, ads need to be very efficient to generate the highest possible click through rate. Ad tech companies like Google or Facebook, argue that microtargeting is the solution for publishers...
The coronavirus pandemic has far-reaching economic consequences for businesses. In order to survive, many businesses cut their advertising and marketing budgets. This is has obvious impact on the media industry at large, from big media outlets to small one person operations. Especially hard hit are those who are often called “influencers”. They see their sponsorship...
