More bad news for the duopolists: Apple’s latest Safari update makes it easier to block third party cookies used for cross-site tracking. They’re especially important for Facebook and Google. Decide for yourself whether Apple is being an altruistic protector of consumer privacy or cementing control over its customers by blocking out competitors.
When Microsoft paid $26 billion for LinkedIn last year, the possibilities for leveraging LinkedIn data seemed endless. Yesterday the company filled in some of the details with product announcements including CRM data validation and integration of Sales Navigator with LinkedIn advertising campaigns and nearly two dozen business intelligence, marketing automation, sales acceleration and other vendors. While Microsoft had already integrated Sales Navigator with its own Dynamics CRM, these announcements make clear that competitive products won’t be frozen out.
Here’s a more conventional item: a product launch. The vendor is Spatially, which provides businesses with location-tagged consumer data. They just added the ability to run geo-targeted ad campaigns in Google AdWords and Facebook.
It’s deal-making time for generative AI model builders and publishers who can provide them with quality data. Germany publishing giant Axel Springer is trading access to its data for Microsoft adtech, AI, and Azure hosting solutions. Meanwhile, The Financial Times has struck a deal with OpenAI to license its content with attribution of summaries and quotes.