Regulators are still mostly ignoring bias in Artificial Intelligence, although we hear scattered rumblings. This report from RELX raises the alarm: 65% of executives say their current AI systems are biased. For added background, check out this 71-page introduction to the topic from the IAB.
Here’s a de-acquisition story just to mix things up: the United Kingdom’s Competition and Markets Authority has ordered Meta, owner of Facebook, to reverse last year’s purchase of animated GIF distributor Giphy. The Authority felt the deal reduced potential competition for ad sales and could let Facebook/Meta reduce other competitors’ access to Giphy GIFs or demand more data from them. It’s one more sign that regulators everywhere are turning on Meta/Facebook after years of neglect.
Digital experience platform Optimizely is further expanding its scope with a deal to buy Welcome, which provides content management, digital asset management, and marketing resource management. You may recall that Optimizely itself was purchased in September 2020 by Episerver, which then adopted the Optimizely name. And who could forget that they bought the Zaius CDP in March 2021?
Procrastinators of the world can throw a party whenever they get around to it: Google has once more pushed back complete third-party cookie deprecation. The new target is “early next year.” Reasons for the delay include concerns expressed by U.K. data regulator Information Commissioner’s Office, an ongoing inquiry by the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority, and widespread discontent in the advertising ecosystem.