German anti-trust regulators have attacked the heart of Facebook’s ad business by ordering it to let consumers use the service without agreeing to data tracking outside of their Facebook account. The ruling cites Facebook’s dominant market position as reason to make it meet more stringent consent standards than competitors.

When California passed a strong Consumer Privacy Act last year, many expected it would be watered down before taking effect in 2020. So far that hasn’t happened and, with the deadline fast approaching, it seemed the law might keep its teeth. Or not: it turns out that California is still working on regulations to implement the law and, sure enough, the Association of National Advertisers and other groups are lobbying hard to limit its impact. We’ll see if public concerns about privacy can overcome industry pressure. Anybody taking bets?

The Media Rating Council has concluded the accreditation process for Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel National TV measurement. The measurement pairs what Nielsen calls a “high quality, representative panel” with data pulled from devices in some 45 million homes. The measurement was widely adopted by broadcasters and agencies for the 2024 upfront season.