TMW #183 | Wednesday Martech Briefing
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Is Meta a public service? Big Tech is killing SMBs, brand deepfakes
Here’s the week in Martech:
- Is Meta a public service? The EU is regulating Meta like a utility service.
- Big Tech is killing SMBs: Big Tech continues its anticompetitive streak.
- Brand deepfakes: AI content theft puts brand equity at risk.
- Everything else: GenAI to cure designer's block, data brokers ask for deletion guardrails, content moderation on trial, the product dictator, and more.
👇 Here’s everything you’ve missed in marketing and tech this week.
📰 Latest Developments
Is Meta a public service? The European Commission (EC) keeps swinging. After accusing Apple of breaching the Digital Markets Act's (DMA) anti-steering laws, the EC has now informed Meta that its 'pay or okay' approach to collecting consent for personalized advertising is illegal. Under the DMA, gatekeeper platforms like Meta must provide a "less personalised but equivalent alternative" for users who do not freely give consent for personalized advertising. The word 'freely' is key here. The DMA takes the view that because of Meta's massive scale and dominance of social media, those who aren't on the company's platforms miss out on "participation in social life." As a result, consumers are faced with either paying for a service they've always used for free or unwillingly consenting to personalized ads. To counter this somewhat, the EC wants Meta to offer another free option to consumers with something more akin to contextual advertising. The type of advertising that Meta offers determines the company's whole business model; by specifying which business models Meta can and can't use – even if many digital publishers use the same model – the EC is regulating the social media giant like a public service. Maybe given Meta's ubiquity in modern life, it should be treated like a utility company, with the EU subsidizing the lost revenue of unconsenting users? That might sound ridiculous, but at least it's an option: Regulators seem content to continue demonizing personalized advertising without suggesting viable alternatives. Link
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Stay Curious,
Keanu Taylor
Make sense of marketing technology.
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Want to share something interesting or be featured in The Martech Weekly? Drop me a line at juan@themartechweekly.com.