In more straightforward business news, AdQuick announced $6 million Series A to expand its business of programmatically selling out-of-home advertising. The company had already raised $3.2 million in seed rounds. Its Web site will tell you the cost of various outdoor media in your home town, if you’re looking for something to do.
Seventy-five percent of marketers told Merkle they had a CDP in this survey. Merkle was having none of it, citing the figure as a sign of confusion about what a CDP is. Sad but true. Lots of other, presumably more reliable information on personalization, tech spending, and more.
Finally, in honor of President’s Day, our Who’s Buried in Grant’s Tomb Award goes to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which has announced it will examine every acquisition made by Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft in the past ten years to see if they were trying to stifle competition. Bets don’t get much safer.
The U.S. Senate has passed a bill that could potentially ban TikTok in the U.S. if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, does not sell its holdings within a year. The bill now goes to the President Biden, who has said he will sign it. Court challenges are likely to follow.