Just two days after the United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) announced a record $240 million GDPR fine for British Airways, the ICO announced a $123 million penalty against Marriott. Like the British Airways fine, this was for a data breach. But it does suggest that marketers should pay serious attention to the ICO’s savage criticism of real time ad bidding.

Martech financial activity in general was up during the quarter just ended, according to LUMA. Martech accounted for by far the largest share of acquisitions and financing within the digital media sector, which also includes adtech, digital content, and direct to consumer brands. CDPs Segment, Tealium and Blueshift all raised significant new funding.

Martech keeps taking larger bites out of marketing budgets: 17.3% last year, 19.9% this year, 23.5% next year, and 30.9% five years from now, according to the latest CMO Survey. This despite barely more than half (56.4%) of current tools being used and nearly half (48.8%) of the survey respondents reporting worse-than-expected results. Oddly enough, marketers rate selecting marketing technologies as the thing they do best.