With the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) coming into effect on January 1 and the announcement on 14 January from Google that it will be phasing out third party cookies within the next two years, it seems that 2020 will be a significant year for the adtech industry as industry players react with solutions and strategies to adapt. In the face of various regulatory investigations and increasing consumer expectations around privacy, it is clear that programmatic advertising, in particular, is facing a turning point.

Google’s plans include placing limits on third party cookies in its browsers from February 2020, as well as launching anti-fingerprinting measures (which it describes as “deceptive and intrusive techniques”) by the end of the year. We are seeing browsers proposing changes in privacy settings (see also Microsoft), and industry players, such as the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) and the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), developing CCPA compliance tools. Adding to the fray is the rise of new browsers such as Brave, which blocks ad and website tracking and provides for crypto payments to users and publishers for watching ads.

Technologies and business models are changing and privacy, marketing and compliance teams have a lot to keep on top of!

Our experts from both sides of the Atlantic discuss their thoughts on what to look out for in 2020 in our recent client alert.