📑 GDPR will pop the adtech bubble

Searls on adtech
Bookmarked GDPR will pop the adtech bubble by Doc Searls (Doc Searls Weblog)

The good news for both advertising and publishing is that neither needs adtech. What’s more, people can signal what they want out of the sites they visit—and from the whole marketplace. In fact the Internet itself was designed for exactly that. The GDPR just made the market a lot more willing to start hearing clues from customers that have been laying in plain sight for almost twenty years.

There has been a lot written about GDPR, especially in light of Cambridge Analytica. This post from Doc Searls stands out for its depth, especially in regards to his references and resources. He discusses what he sees as the eminent demise of ‘adtech’, technology such as analytics designed to support advertising.

Searls discusses what will be left of advertising — and what it supports — after the adtech bubble pops. This includes providing a picture of the current context, such as attempts by collectives to circumvent various changes. In conclusion he provides the following tips:

  • Don’t bet against Google
  • Do bet on any business working for customers rather than sellers
  • Do bet on developers building tools that give each of us scale in dealing with the world’s companies and governments
  • Do bet on publishers getting back to what worked since forever offline and hardly got a chance online: plain old brand advertising

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