What you need to know in advertising today
Specifically, the tech giant is shuttering its five-year-old Partner Categories program, which lets advertisers use data from third parties to deliver ads to specific consumers.
The move to pull back on its ad-targeting offerings comes amid the controversy over the use of third-party data collected by apps used by the firm Cambridge Analytica.
It also comes just weeks before the General Data Protection Regulation takes effect. That European law could put a significant burden on digital platforms and advertisers to obtain clear consent from consumers when using their digital data.
To read more about how the company is shutting down the use of third-party data for ad targeting, click here.
In other news:
Snap hands out pink slips to around 100 employees in latest round of layoffs.The company's sales staff is bearing the brunt of the latest cuts.
Speaking of Snapchat, the app may let users connect to third-party apps through its platform, according to Mashable. The latest Snapchat beta features a new tab called "Connected Apps", which may show which external apps a user has connected to.
A pair of ex-Yahoo executives are trying to band web publishers together to take on Facebook. Jim Heckman and Josh Jacobs are behind TheMaven, which recently acquired the publishing tech firm HubPages and has now snatched up Say Media.
US president Donald Trump is reportedly "obsessed" with Amazon, and wants to pursue an antitrust investigation or a tax crackdown to curtain the firm's online dominance.Trump believes that Amazon is detrimental to smaller bricks-and-mortar retailers.
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