Fresh on the heels of its Time Warner acquisition, AT&T has announced plans to buy digital ad marketplace AppNexus. It will provide core technology for the TV advertising and analytics unit AT&T set up last August. AT&T has more than 170 million direct consumer relationships across its wireless, video, and broadband businesses. These could position it as an alternative to Facebook, Google, and others who control their own mass audiences.

A CDP is in place at nearly half (45%) of marketers surveyed by Forbes Insights for CDP vendor Treasure Data. One third (35%) of those with a CDP have seen some benefits already and 93% expect benefits within two years. The fraction seeing significant benefits is expected to grow from 1% now to 40% over that period. Download for lots of other good data about data sources, obstacles, and applications.

Procrastinators of the world can throw a party whenever they get around to it: Google has once more pushed back complete third-party cookie deprecation.  The new target is “early next year.” Reasons for the delay include concerns expressed by U.K. data regulator Information Commissioner’s Office, an ongoing inquiry by the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority, and widespread discontent in the advertising ecosystem.