The Big Story is a breezy podcast featuring a roundtable of AdExchanger editors talking about the biggest stories from the past week. It is available wherever you subscribe to podcasts.
It’s a fine January!
By which I mean GDPR fine.
On Monday, France’s Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (CNIL) levied a 57 million euro fine on Google for failing to comply with GDPR. Allison Schiff wrote a thorough report on the situation, but there’s way more to be said – and way more was said this week on “The Big Story.”
CNIL’s fine on Google is the biggest yet under GDPR – and while 57 million euros is an amount Google routinely dumps into its tiny change purse, it’s significant by enforcement standards. This isn’t a pay-it-and-forget-about-it fine.
CNIL justified the amount by indicating that Google’s violations for failing to provide users with clear and unambiguous consent were ongoing. So the enforcement body will certainly anticipate corrective measures from the tech giant.
But this fine opens up a huge can of worms for the entire advertising community. For instance, if Google didn’t obtain adequate consent to port data across its own services, what does this imply about the future of consent portability? Does this throw a monkey wrench into the IAB Tech Lab’s consent framework?
And what about Facebook porting data between WhatsApp and Instagram?
Meanwhile, back in the United States, the streaming wars continue, with some early casualties. Netflix isn’t worried about all the competition – or at least, it claims not to be. Maybe that’s because, as Disney learned, streaming is expensive. The Mouse House lost about half a billion dollars on content costs associated with Hulu, and another half a billion supporting its BAMTech investment. Meanwhile, Walmart is reportedly dumping its streaming ambitions.
The AdExchanger team takes a look at the cost and benefits of standing up a streaming video platform – and what role advertising might have to play – on “The Big Story.”
