You may recall that CDP Manthan announced a merger with personalization platform RichRelevance back in November 2019. They finally completed the deal and have renamed the combined company Algonomy. The combined firm has more than 400 retailers as clients.
Another question people never ask is whether Google and Facebook stifle competition, since the answer is obviously yes. It’s been less clear that they team up against everyone else, but that’s what The New York Times found in documents collected by the Texas attorney general. The secret deal gave Facebook an advantage on Google’s Open Bidding Platform.
Google Cloud is also offering personalization solutions for retailers, announcing a trio of products that do product recommendations, visual search, and product search within Websites. The first two are available now and the third is in private preview.
It’s tough to get brand safety right, but the industry keeps trying. IPG Mediabrands announced a new set of tools to find and block inappropriate ad placements, while IAS expanded its suitability measurements to include standards from the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM). Meanwhile, DoubleVerify admitted a mistake made brand safety on X/Twitter look worse than it really was in October 2023 and March 2024.