Facebook Settles Over Inflated Video Metrics; Disney Agency Review Draws Fire

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Plaintiff Engagement

Remember Facebook’s video metrics mess? That situation led to a class action lawsuit, in which ad agencies alleged that Facebook inflated video engagement. And now, a proposed settlement would have Facebook pay $40 million, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The money would be paid into a fund that will pay off advertisers that were part of the lawsuit, “directly proportional to the amount they spent on video advertising.” The plaintiffs recommend that the court approve the settlement, even though they anticipate they could recover between $100 million and $200 million if they were to go to trial and win. “Facebook was certain to argue that while there had been a metrics error, the affected metrics were just two of many metrics that Facebook provided, and were arguably less important than the others that Facebook provided,” according to a motion to approve the settlement. Read the proposal.

Shifting Ground

Disney is taking a new and aggressive approach in its agency review, MediaPost’s Larissa Faw reports. Some of the agencies involved in the review are evidently bristling at a Disney requirement that the winner funnel money to Disney properties. “At issue is Disney’s request that the winning holding company require the agencies’ other clients to allocate what is being called a ‘share shift’ – to spend more of their respective ad budgets on Disney properties. This means that if client carmaker X spent 20% on Disney channels this year, the media spend would now rise to, say, 23% in 2020.” The main contenders in the review are Dentsu Aegis Network and Omnicom, which both currently oversee Disney accounts, with Publicis also expected to pick up some business. WPP’s withdrew over a conflict with its Comcast account. More.

Luck Of The Irish

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) has finished its investigations into Twitter and Facebook’s WhatsApp over EU data privacy rule violations. Now, the investigation will decide whether to levy a penalty. The WhatsApp investigation began in 2018, over whether the messaging platform provided information transparently to users and nonusers. And the Twitter investigation began in January, after the company notified the DPC of a data breach. Ireland’s DPC oversees many investigations into big tech since many base their EU headquarters in the country. The DPC has “opened more than a dozen investigations into big tech companies including Facebook, Apple, Google and Twitter,” according to CNBC. More.

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