September 30th-October 6th // Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Apple has far-reaching plans to block hundreds of programmatic data companies from iOS - Apple's iOS 27 update is blocking cookieless ID solutions such as LiveRamp, ID5, Permutive, Unified ID 2.0, and Audigent from collecting data or serving ads on Safari. In an added wrinkle, the iOS 27 update is also blocking The Trade Desk’s ad serving domain, which means The Trade Desk can’t serve ads at all on Safari inventory (for the time being). It’s unclear whether the block is intentional or not; The Trade Desk filed a complaint and Apple is apparently investigating. Sources now tell AdExchanger that the initial short list of blocked companies has been expanded. It includes CDPs, ad tech and mar tech firms, data sellers, and ID graph operators that Apple is now blocking from reaching people on iPhones and Macs. 

Opinion: Over the last couple of years, it had seemed like Apple’s privacy crusade had ended and ad tech tracking could proceed peacefully. Nope! Perhaps Apple’s privacy crusade has slowed down, but it’s logical to assume that Apple will take this as far as it possibly can because a) it’s not hard for Apple to implement, b) it doesn’t really piss off anyone Apple cares about (ad tech cos and publishers are collateral damage) and, c) hurting other ad companies helps Apple grow its ads business. The only thing that can stop this is antitrust. We wouldn’t bank on it. Time to get back to preparing for an ID-less future. 

OpenWeb enters insolvency after a dramatic fall from $1.5B valuation🔒 - A Tel Aviv court declared the ad tech firm insolvent last week and appointed a temporary receiver. Lender Mars Growth Capital asked the court to step in so it could seize OpenWeb's assets to recover about $20M in debt. OpenWeb, whose tech helps publishers monetize comment sections and other on-site user communities, had $57.6M in liabilities and $13.8M in cash at the end of August. 

Opinion: The open web isn’t doing so hot right now. So it makes sense that a company called OpenWeb is going under. That said, this company in particular had a bunch of red flags over the years. OpenWeb is a harsh reminder that sky-high valuations from the pandemic boom years don't guarantee staying power. 

TikTok expands its off-platform ad network to US advertisers🔒 - US and global advertisers can now use TikTok's ad network to reach US users in apps outside of TikTok. The network, which ByteDance first launched as “Pangle”, places ads in close to 400K apps globally. That includes 44% of the 100 biggest gaming apps in the US. To ease buyers' brand safety concerns, TikTok added verification from IAS and DoubleVerify in September. As part of a slew of announcements made at Advertising Week, TikTok also unveiled new AI-powered tools, such as an AI assistant to help shoppers and in-app checkout🔒(separate from TikTok Shop). Advertisers can also now run TikTok campaigns from inside Claude and Perplexity.

Opinion: When a walled garden’s owned & operated ad business becomes large and saturated, the only place to go for growth is 3rd party supply. TikTok’s ad business has become that large. But being able to scale a profitable, 3rd party ad business won’t be easy. There are data privacy concerns, brand safety issues, and lots of competition.

OpenAI moves to make ChatGPT Ads more measurable and more visual🔒 - Later this month, OpenAI will start testing image ads that let brands show what their products look like. The first test, with a small group of US advertisers, will only show ads while users are generating images in ChatGPT. OpenAI also added more than a dozen measurement partners, including LiveRamp, Kochava, and AppsFlyer, so advertisers can track results with 3rd party measurement tools they already use. OpenAI is also bringing in DoubleVerify and IAS🔒 to independently test brand suitability controls, assessing whether its ad safeguards keep brands away from content they want to avoid.

Opinion: OpenAI continues to experiment with ad formats, as it should. It hasn’t quite cracked the code on what advertising should look like in an LLM. Visual ads make a lot of sense, especially for commerce-focused advertisers. 

Google and the DOJ filed their proposed final judgments in the ad tech case: Here's what they're still arguing about - The DOJ wants Google to connect its ad exchange (AdX) to Prebid and rival ad servers within six months, while Google wants 12. Google also wants up to two more years to apply the remedies outside the US, while the DOJ wants them to apply globally immediately. The DOJ wants Google to share ad server data with publishers when they're weighing a switch, but Google only wants to share it after they've decided to leave. Both sides support a six-year court-appointed monitor, but they disagree on who picks the monitor and how much access Google must give. Other than that, they agree on the core remedies, like Google connecting AdX to Prebid and letting publishers use Google's ad server (DFP) without its ad exchange (AdX). Google escaped selling off any parts of its stack.

Opinion: Google haggling is like LeBron haggling…

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