Kenny Leftin’s Post

I'm excited to share some great news. The startup I joined less than 2 years ago, Anonym, has been acquired by Mozilla! I couldn’t be more excited to join Mozilla and work with the amazing teams there. Like Anonym, Mozilla believes that we need a free and open internet supported by digital advertising, and that digital advertising doesn’t need to compromise people’s privacy. You can learn more about the acquisition by reading Mozilla's blog post (https://lnkd.in/eVkbmzkb) and the AdExchanger article (https://lnkd.in/euckaKPR).

Hot off the press! 🔥 Mozilla has expanded its partnership with adMarketplace, naming us their preferred monetization platform. Together, we're enhancing the new tab experience on Firefox with a focus on privacy and value for advertisers. "We’re happy to partner with adMarketplace in order to bring these privacy-preserving ad solutions to more advertisers,” said Katherine Rudolph Bose, Vice President of Business and Corporate Development at Mozilla. Check out the full press release below. https://lnkd.in/ecJjAVQV #ConsumerPrivacy #SearchAdvertising #PrivacyBrowsers #ConsumerJourney #Publishers

A really good point by Arielle Garcia in this story (read the whole thing) "Privacy-enhancing tech doesn’t make creepy and disruptive ads less creepy or disruptive in the eyes of the average user." Research presented at PrivacyCon says that "perceived privacy violations" for on-device systems that don't identify you individually are about the same as for conventional cookie-based tracking https://lnkd.in/gqA-bb5g That research is consistent with my experience answering end user questions about this stuff. People seem to be just as interested in turning off the new "privacy-preserving" ad features as the old-fashioned cookies—sometimes more. What I think is going on here is that, true, the new features don't identify you as an individual, but they still do some of the problem parts of "creepy" ads. A "privacy-preserving" ad system can still: * match scammers to likely victims * classify people into groups to enable price discrimination and other forms of discrimination

#Chrome now directly tracks users, generates a "topic" list it shares with advertisers. Simply because #Google is an advertising agency, remember. You can turn it off: https://lnkd.in/eKZcreKJ But way better is switching to a different browser, like #Firefox. It is faster too, and a great experience. https://lnkd.in/egH7WUHM

Ouch... Google Chrome is rolling out an update that will track the pages you visit and then give advertisers "topics" based on your browser history. There are a few ways to deal with this: 1) Go to chrome://settings/adPrivacy and turn off the settings for ALL 3 options 2) Uninstall Chrome and use Brave or Firefox instead. Since this is baked into Chrome, it is probably best to uninstall it. I mean, it's not like Google will *stop* extending its advertising capabilities.

Nice callout to Advanced Contextual from Kendra at The Drum here: https://lnkd.in/e7U7mQEK I've been around long enough to remember when Netscape, then Internet Explorer, and lately Chrome became the most used browser. I can't imagine betting on a solution based on one browser.

✨ Today we’re proud to unveil our latest study: "Full Disclosure: Stress-testing tech platforms' ad repositories" (🔎 https://lnkd.in/em3YsVds). Mozilla trusted us to conduct this comprehensive, full-scale stress test of Ad libraries on the world’s largest tech platforms. Ad repositories are mandated by Article 39 of the European Digital Services Act. We investigated AliExpress, Apple App Store, Bing, Booking.com, Alphabet’s Google Search & YouTube, LinkedIn, Meta, Pinterest, Snap Inc., TikTok, X, and Zalando. The result of our collaborative work with Mozilla is clearly balanced. The tools exist but are they really useful to the research community? With half the world's population going to the polls this year, the aftermath of this lack of transparency is concerning. 🔎 You can read our full study here & learn more about one of our recommendations, the Standardised Digital Advertising Format (SDAF), a common format and open-source tool for ad data: https://lnkd.in/em3YsVds #DSA #Mozilla #adlibraries #adrepositories #transparency

https://lnkd.in/eHcxfxtH? Google is limiting the ability of ad blocking extensions to continuously update their blocklists. One classic piece of tech business wisdom is that it's dangerous to build a product that's entirely dependent on someone else's platform. The more extreme amendment might be: it's an especially bad idea to build a product that blocks ads and is dependent on a platform controlled by a company that makes all of its money from ads.

Upcoming significant updates to Google Chrome are set to have a profound impact on the landscape of the modern internet. These changes, poised to redefine web browsing, privacy, and digital advertising, underscore the need for businesses and users to stay informed and adaptable. As Chrome leads the way, it's crucial for stakeholders to understand how these developments will influence online strategies and user experiences. #GoogleChrome #InternetEvolution #DigitalTrends https://lnkd.in/eQ2SAqji

Today (4 January 2024), Google will disable third-party cookies in 1% of all Chrome browsers, the first step towards getting rid of them all. The move will be a key step for publishers focusing on ad revenue rather than from users.... Why is it still unpopular to force users to register on a website as the first step to converting to an online subscription? Michał Hejka Tomasz Krawczyk Marcin Kowalczyk Paulina Plenkiewicz Michal Chabas Michał Kreczmar Maciej Kossowski Paweł Kossek, Executive MBA Artur 🤖 Kurasiński Marcin Niemczyk Alex Chapko Jarosław Śliżewski #Chrome #Google #cookies