Predictive analytics are now built into everything including dog collars. But I guess it’s still newsworthy that Google Analytics will now predict which Web site visitors are likely to purchase and which are likely to not revisit. The predictions can create custom audiences that are then targeted in Google Ads. It’s all free so near as I can tell.

Facebook gets no sympathy because they make their own rules. But other publishers are also struggling against a tide of deceptive ads, political and otherwise. This GeoEdge survey found that 69% of publishers see a moderate or large number of deceptive ads each week and that 20% have lost viewers as a result of publishing them. Avoiding bad ads has its own risks: 49% said they inadvertently block non-deceptive ads often or very often.

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.