Top AdTech & MarTech News Stories from Q1 2022

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A lot happened in the AdTech and MarTech world in Q1 2022.

To help keep you informed about what’s happening, we’ve put together a list of the main AdTech and MarTech stories, including news about Google Chrome’s new Topics API, the IAB Tech Lab’s Seller Defined Audiences, as well as the latest antitrust investigations and mergers and acquisitions.

Top Stories AdTech and MarTech News Stories

Google Chrome Shuts Down FLoC and Introduces Topics API

Back in July 2021, Google Chrome floated the idea that its interest-based advertising proposal — Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) — could be replaced by a topics-based advertising proposal. 

On January 25, 2022, these suspicions were realized when Chrome announced that it would be shutting down FLoC and replacing it with a new proposal — Topics API.

Topics API is the latest addition to Google Chrome’s Privacy Sandbox and will replace its Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) API, which was designed to run interest-based advertising but in a more privacy friendly way than ad targeting via third-party cookies.

Chrome will no longer work on the FLoC proposal and will instead focus on creating and testing Topics.

Read more about Google Chrome’s Topics API here:

Google Chrome’s Privacy Sandbox Opens Testing for Topics, FLEDGE and Attribution Reporting API

In late January 2022, Google Chrome announced that it would begin the first origin trials of the FLEDGE proposal and start a new origin trial for the Attribution Reporting API proposal in its Privacy Sandbox.

Then on March 31, 2022, Google Chrome announced that developer origin trials of Topics, FLEDGE and the Attribution Reporting API had begun.

Read more about the origin trials for Topics, FLEDGE and the Attribution Reporting API here:

Google Announces That Privacy Sandbox Will Be Extended to Android 

On February 16, 2022, Google announced that it would be implementing its Privacy Sandbox initiative into Android. 

This announcement corresponds with Google’s decision to stop passing its mobile advertising ID — Google Advertising ID (GAID) — to AdTech and mobile measurement platforms if an Android user opts out of ad personalization. 

Read more about Google’s decision to introduce its Privacy Sandbox to Android:

The IAB Tech Lab Launches Seller Defined Audiences

On February 24, 2022, the IAB Tech Lab released its first addressability specification from the Project Rearc initiative: Seller Defined Audiences (SDA).

SDA is designed to help publishers monetize their first-party data by creating audience cohorts that can then be passed on to demand partners (i.e. DSPs) in OpenRTB bid requests via Prebid.

Below is the IAB Tech Lab’s description of how Seller Defined Audiences works.

Publishers or their data partners determine audience attributes based on user interactions on their properties, map similar groups of users to broad, standardized taxonomy attribute descriptions (Audience Taxonomy), document audience characteristics/metadata via a standardized transparency schema (the Data Transparency Standard aka DTS), then relay taxonomy IDs within OpenRTB to inform downstream signaling by buyers.

Read more about the IAB Tech Lab’s Seller Defined Audiences here:

Google’s Encrypted Signals Program Enters Open Beta

In March 2021, Google announced that it would be developing a new feature called Encrypted Signals Program (ESP) within its Google Ad Manager to help publishers share encrypted identifiers, including popular ID solutions like UID 2.0, with its demand partners (i.e. Authorized Buyers and Open Bidders). 

A year later, Google announced that its Encrypted Signals Program has entered open beta, allowing publishers to start sharing these encrypted signals with their demand partners. 

Read more about Google’s Encrypted Signals Program here:

Antitrust Investigations

Mergers, Acquisitions, IPOs and Funding Rounds

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