The Federal Trade Commission and 48 attorneys general filed parallel anti-trust lawsuits against Facebook yesterday, alleging violations of federal and state anti-trust laws. The main charge is that buying WhatsApp and Instagram were aimed at removing market competitors to preserve Facebook’s ad monopoly. The long-expected suits may seek divestiture of the two acquisitions and other constraints.
Eighty percent of CDP users say their system has helped to meet customer expectations, according to this Forrester study for Twilio Segment. But they want more: just 31% said they were satisfied with their current solution and 65% expect to increase investment in data tools. The biggest gaps relate to activation: using automation to unify customer touchpoints and applying real-time insights to customer interactions.
Speaking of trust, European regulators don’t trust tech giants to treat their competitors fairly. Nor does anyone else, but the EU is doing something about it. Their latest step is a set of guidelines for documenting how search ranking algorithms work. The guidelines aren’t legally binding but they offer strong hints for how the EU wants the platforms to comply with the Platform-to-Business Regulation (P2B), which is.
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.