IAB Gears Up For CCPA; Vodafone Ramps Up In-House Media Team

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Help Us, IAB

Next up for the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA): Gov. Gavin Newsom needs to sign the bill into law, and the attorney general needs to release practical guidelines. (Read AdExchanger’s coverage.) It’s all happening fast, and if you’re an ad tech company and need to get your ducks in a row, the IAB is hoping to help. The trade group proposed a framework to help the industry deal with the inevitable headaches created by the law, which goes into effect Jan. 1, 2020. At issue: It’s hard for ad tech companies (aka “downstream parties”) to know if someone reading a publication is a California resident or not. So the IAB wants to find a technological way to make all that clear. The IAB will “in very short order” publish tech specs and release them for public comment. More.

Return To DIY

Vodafone is bringing back its in-house media unit, after jettisoning it one year ago. Vodafone, which has 12 employees in ad buying and planning roles, is looking to hire another nine, Digiday reports. The new hires started in January, around the same time Vodafone brought on Hearts & Science vet Meyrick Irving as head of biddable media. “Looking ahead, Vodafone wants to bring in a mix of senior and junior execs to cover a range of roles from programmatic optimization specialists to manage campaigns bought from its licensed ad server and demand-side platform, as well as programmatic audience specialists to help broker its publisher and private marketplace buys.” More.

Misinformed

Major brands are unknowingly buying ads on domains that peddle misinformation. The campaigns have included ads from Amazon, OfficeMax and Sprint. A study by nonprofit Global Disinformation Index (GDI) showed ad tech companies spending $235 million annually on sites that fact-checkers warn against, such as RT and Twitchy. Google is by far the biggest facilitator, serving about 70% of the ads on about 20,000 websites tracked by GDI. Google has no formal policies against misinformation, according to Poynter, just a pledge since the 2016 election to restrict ads on sites that “misrepresent, misstate, or conceal information about the publisher, the publisher’s content, or the primary purpose of the web property.” More.

Annie Get Your Libring

Mobile app analytics provider App Annie bought mobile analytics provider Libring. App Annie already tracks app store stats like downloads and retention. With Libring, App Annie has more insights into ad spend and monetization. “The deal will allow App Annie to present its mobile app market data side by side with advertising analytics data in order to paint a more complete picture of an app’s performance and revenue,” TechCrunch reports. Libring’s 30 employees will all join App Annie – and hopefully, so will Libring’s clients, including Ubisoft and Reddit. Terms of the deal were undisclosed. More.

But Wait, There’s More