There is a large ecosystem of four key players that is trading our data and our attention for revenues, at least in the West. As Apple vies for the position of trusted service and hardware provider, Google is ring-fencing the cookie game into its own proprietary stack. IMHO Facebook has screwed its customers and hopefully will either reverse its policy or go away completely. All of this will cause a huge disruption in the AdTech industry. And Amazon who has been transparent all along “we’ll grab every piece of your data wherever we can to sell you more stuff” will likely continue to grow. StJohn at Citizen.Me provides a great take on this.
“In theory, personalisation means that the advertising that we see is a perfect match for us. The dream is that advertising disappears and transforms itself into helpful information that makes our lives better. [..] Today’s digital personalisation requires hoards of personal data about us. This is gathered and traded, creating billion dollar market places for our data – without our knowledge or our permission.
Clash Of The Digital Titans: Apple Takes Trust ‘Premium’ by StJohn Deakins at CitizenMe.
The algorithms are designed to mould behaviour to serve the digital content engagement rather than creating content that serves people first. This manipulation in turn leads to all kinds of unintended consequences: fake news, deep fakes, electoral manipulation and commercial scams.”