‘The Google Data Protection Regulation’: GDPR is strafing ad sellers

[MrFredPFL]

Story : https://digiday.com/media/google-data-protection-regulation-gdpr-strafing-ad-sel

The General Data Protection Regulation’s enforcement got off to a shaky start, marked by programmatic ad demand volumes plummeting in Europe. While some publishers have recovered programmatic ad revenue drops relatively quickly, others have seen display ad revenues fall further in the past week. Independent ad exchanges aren’t out of the woods, either.

A core reason for the upheaval: Google.

The vagueness of GDPR has led to wildly different compliance interpretations from businesses. Google has taken a strict consent-based approach to avoid the risk of hefty penalties. Days before the law’s arrival on May 25, Google warned ad tech vendors that rely on demand from Google’s DoubleClick Bid Manager to expect some short-term disruption to European campaigns until Google has integrated fully with the Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe’s GDPR framework — to which Google only publicly confirmed its commitment in the week of the law’s enforcement.

However, media buyers were also informed on the eve of May 25 not to buy via DBM on third-party exchanges, as Google could not verify they are compliant. The consequence was that just hours after the law’s enforcement, numerous independent ad exchanges and other vendors watched their ad demand volumes drop between 20 and 40 percent. But with agencies free to still buy demand on Google’s marketplace, demand on AdX spiked. The fact that Google’s compliance strategy has ended up hurting its competitors and redirecting higher demand back to its own marketplace, where it can guarantee it has user consent, has unsettled publishers and ad tech vendors.