The Race Is On to Challenge Google-Facebook ‘Duopoly’ in Digital Advertising – WSJ

The U.S. digital ad market grew by nearly $12 billion last year, with Google and Facebook collecting 77 cents of each new dollar spent, according to eMarketer. Peter and Maria Hoey June 19, 2017 5:30 a.m. ET Facebook Inc. FB -2.59% and Alphabet Inc.’s GOOGL -0.02% Google tower so far above the rest of the…

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Regulatory complaint concerning massive, web-wide data breach by Google and other “ad tech” companies under Europe’s GDPR | Brave Browser

Dublin, Ireland and London, United Kingdom, Wednesday, 12 September 2018 — Simultaneous complaints have been filed with European data protection authorities against Google and other ad tech firms. The complainants are being made by Dr Johnny Ryan of Brave, the private web browser, Jim Killock, Executive Director of the Open Rights Group, and Michael Veale…

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Google Wants to Kill the URL | WIRED

Google’s Chrome browser turns 10 today, and in its short life it has introduced a lot of radical changes to the web. From popularizing auto-updates to aggressively promoting HTTPS web encryption, the Chrome security team likes to grapple with big, conceptual problems. That reach and influence can be divisive, though, and as Chrome looks ahead…

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Ad fraud one of the most profitable criminal enterprises in the world, researcher says – Which-50

Ad fraud is at an all-time high and remains one of the most profitable criminal enterprises in the world, generating tens of billions of dollars a year. That’s the view of Dr Augustine Fou, cybersecurity and ad fraud researcher who this morning released a Slideshare presentation on LinkedIn describing the state of digital ad fraud in 2018….

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YouTube Debuts Plan to Promote and Fund ‘Authoritative’ News | WIRED

Following a year in which YouTube has repeatedly promoted conspiracy-theory videos during breaking news events like the shootings in Parkland, Florida, and Las Vegas, the company announced on Monday a slew of new features it hopes will make news on the platform more reliable and less susceptible to manipulation. The company is also investing $25…

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The regulatory mistakes that let Facebook and Google buy ad dominance – Axios

Several major acquisitions have helped Google and Facebook on their way to unprecedented dominance over the advertising supply chain, antitrust analysts argued at the Open Markets Institute forum in Washington last week. Why it matters: Many blame these two companies for absorbing the majority of ad revenue that would’ve gone to traditional media.   Show…

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Your Worst Alexa Nightmares Are Coming True

Illustration: Gizmodo What’s the most terrifying thing you can imagine an Amazon Echo doing? Think realistically. Would it be something simple but sinister, like the artificially intelligent speaker recording a conversation between you and a loved one and then sending that recording to an acquaintance? That seems pretty bad to me. And guess what: it’s…

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