Ad Industry Must Stay 'Open' To Save The Web

PALM SPRINGS, CA -- IAB CEO David Cohen called on the advertising industry to do what it can to keep the web open and get involved in privacy regulations before some other entity or political regulation does it instead.

He made the appeal during his keynote on Monday at the IAB ALM conference here. 

Cohen called on support for the open web along with interoperable and transparent digital technology, as artificial intelligence (AI) changes business models and privacy regulations.

He asked conference attendees to “stay open, open to the potential, open to the new ways of thinking and new business models” and “open to possibilities.”

There will be a critical role for ethical considerations and industry standards, and the IAB is ready to lead those standards.

“One thing we know about the future is that it will arrive at dizzying speed,” he said. “On some days, maybe many days, we will feel like we crash landed from Kansas right next to the yellow brick road to Oz.”

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He spoke about AI agents that will innovate and evolve without human input. “Your agent will connect with my agent, and deliver tasks with incredible efficiency,” he said. “In that world, how does advertising work?"

Staying open also relates to privacy. Cohen told MediaPost that advertisers need to stay open in the way they protect consumer privacy, and proposed a “foundational privacy law across the country, rather than a complex 20-state patchwork, though some are more closely aligned than others.”

On top of that foundational layer, the industry can add additional laws around sensitive data, healthcare data or AI or kids and teens, but we need to start with the basics.

In Washington, everyone comes to the table with an agenda, but they have not lined up as was hoped. "For better or for worse, there seems to be a galvanization around the Republican party," he said. "If there’s ever a chance to get this done, it will probably be over the next two years."

Google wants to put privacy governance in the browser and allow AI to monitor it. Cohen believes there is no single answer for this next-generation question.

What is the role of the browser, he asked. Is the browser a window into consumers’ habits, preferences and choices, or is it making decisions on behalf of consumers?

“Browsers are a public utility, and they should be regulated like water, electricity, and gas industries,” he said. “They should not be collecting a toll.”

Google is about to introduce in its Chrome browser a consumer opt-out prompt like Apple’s AppTrackingTransparency framework, and it is likely to have a similar effect. “That’s fine, but when you’re starting to put your fingers on the scale of measurement, attribution, as well as collect tolls along the way, it’s gone a bit too far.”

There is a movement by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to make browsers central to measurement and attribution, allowing them to create rules.

“That’s not their job,” he said, urging the industry to get involved. “These conversations are happening without industry executives, and it has become vital that more brands and publishers participate in these meetings.”

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