And just this morning I received a text from AT&T that said, in part, "Your privacy comes first, as always."<p>I wonder if they are getting their definition of privacy from the same place they get their definition of unlimited?
There should be some decent commentary from industry people on r/adops:<p><a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/adops/comments/8tqezg/att_to_acquire_appnexus_for_16_billion/" rel="nofollow">https://old.reddit.com/r/adops/comments/8tqezg/att_to_acquir...</a><p><a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/adops/comments/8t2z0f/atts_brian_lesser_on_the_future_of_advertising/" rel="nofollow">https://old.reddit.com/r/adops/comments/8t2z0f/atts_brian_le...</a>
On one side: Net neutrality is dead, so you can see where AT&T might see a future for expanding their advertising business. But on the other side: Between GDPR and the constant calls for the US to adopt something similar, the default integration of ad blockers into more browsers, and the fact that targeted advertising just... isn't all that effective, it seems like a poor business to start investing in now.
Wow. Wow. Wow.<p>Part of me is terrified that someone who has all my details just bought a firm that can trad on them. (It’s economic magic though - as if the Federal Reserve bought a hedge fund)<p>But part of me says that when one dinosaur buys another, the end result is rarely Excellence. I suspect that this will wind up a disaster and write-off.
Well, since ISPs are now free to sell / monetize consumer traffic data [0], this makes some sense. They are pretty desperate for ways to be something more than a dumb pipe for other's content.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/sjres34/summary" rel="nofollow">https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/115/sjres34/summary</a>
Last year, AT&T hired Brian Lesser, the former CEO of GroupM/WPP. They have been planning to enter the digital marketing as a player for a while now.
More and more "vertical integration".<p>And, with the current FCC, I expect more forced "channeling" of customers/users into said integration.<p>I wrote Congress regarding net neutrality. I got one response -- and that not from my own representatives. And, despite my pointing this behavior out in my original letter, it just continued to shill the ATT, Comcast, Verizon, et al. talking points.<p>Right now, at home, on the connection Comcast just raised the monthly cost of by circa 30% since the beginning of this year, I'm using a VPN to keep their nose (and JS injection) out of my business.<p>I reiterate: We need a competing physical layer. One that we keep from getting likewise co-opted.
Interesting answer to Verizon's acquisition of AOL + Yahoo, until all the recent acquisitions I (naively) just assumed ISP's revenue was primary from selling services (cable, internet, tv, data, etc) and reselling the data somehow, but did not connect that they're all very much in adtech...