Advertising

California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D-CA) resolved a $93 million settlement with Google over allegations that its location-privacy practices violated California consumer protection laws. The settlement follows a multi-year investigation by the California Department of Justice that determined Google was deceiving users by collecting, storing, and using their location data for consumer profiling and advertising purposes without informed consent.

California lawmakers passed a bill known as the Delete Act (Senate Bill 362) that would allow consumers, with a single request, to have every data broker delete their personal information. Data brokers include a variety of businesses that gather and sell people’s personal information, such as their address, marital status and spending habits.

Following nearly a year of sustained pressure on brands from the #StopToxicTwitter coalition, showing the dangers of advertising on Twitter (now “X”), Elon Musk is now singling out coalition members to blame for the company’s extensive revenue losses.

When Microsoft unveiled an AI-powered version of Bing in February 2023, the company said it could add $2 billion of revenue if the revamped search engine could pry away even a single point of market share from Google.

For all the stock that brands and their agencies put on the value of consumer mentions in social media, it actually ranks relatively low among the modes of communication people use to express their sentiment about brands to others.

From its inception, LinkNYC – the public WiFi kiosks that are run by a consortium of companies including Google subsidiary Sidewalk Labs – has always posed a threat to privacy. But after nine years of operation and a recent audit, it’s fair to say LinkNYC represents a barely mitigated privacy disaster.

T-Mobile will appeal several decisions made by the National Advertising Division (NAD) of BBB National Programs to challenges brought by AT&T. The decisions involved “Phone Freedom” ads that appeared in television commercials, radio advertisements, and on T-Mobile’s website. The good news for T-Mobile is that NAD found at least one claim made in the “Phone Freedom” campaign to be supported. The bad news for T-Mobile is that some claims were not found to be supported.

Charter Communications has prevailed in its appeal of a decision by the BBB National Program’s National Advertising Division (NAD) about speed claims in its broadband advertising. The appeal was upheld by the National Advertising Review Board (NARB), the appellate advertising body of BBB National Programs.

T-Mobile’s prepaid brand Metro is conducting a regional marketing campaign in the Midwest, pitching T-Mobile’s fixed wireless access (FWA) product called Home Internet. The promotion advertises the product for a cost of $20 per month, after a $30 per month Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) discount. Typically, T-Mobile’s Home Internet costs $50 per month if the customer signs up for autopay. It costs $55 per month without autopay. But Metro by T-Mobile is focusing on the $30 discount that subscribers can obtain if they apply for ACP.

Gannett, the largest publisher in the US, filed a federal lawsuit in US District Court for the Southern District of New York against Google for monopolization of advertising technology markets and deceptive commercial practices.