#274/ FEB 6, 2022

SPECIAL EDITION: IT'S ALL ILLEGAL!

Almost five years ago the EU passed something called the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) which was aimed at protecting citizens' privacy from the abuses of the data collection industry. The GDPR set certain standards for collecting and using online data, including the activities of online advertisers.

In order to comply with GDPR, advertisers had their trade association, the deceitful and disreputable IAB Europe, come up with a comedy classic called the “Transparency & Consent Framework” (TCF) which they pretended inoculated advertisers from actually complying with GDPR. The TCF is the bogus justification for what became those idiotic consent pop-ups.

This week, the data protection authorities ruled that the TCF is total bullshit and illegal. They ruled that it...
     ... does not keep personal data secure, as required by GDPR
     ... does not properly collect personal consent
     ... has not established a lawfully valid "legitimate interest" in collecting information
     ... fails to be transparent about what it does with peoples' data
     ... fails to see to it that data is processed in accord with GDPR guidelines
     ... fails to respect the GDPR requirement of “data protection by design”

Other than that, it's fucking great.

The next question is, what will this mean to the adtech industry? As we know, historically the adtech industry just sticks up its middle finger at regulators and does whatever the hell it wants. The regulators think they run things but their pathetic ineptitude and timidity has allowed the adtech industry to run roughshod over them and the public since the day GDPR was enacted.

One consequence of this ruling is that Google and everyone else in the online ad industry are required to burn all the data they've collected illegally. Google will comply with that when refrigerators fly.

The IAB Europe now has six months to correct the gross illegality of its TCF nonsense. What will it do? My guess, it will come up with some new horseshit that will take years to litigate while the adtech industry goes merrily along screwing the public. As usual, I hope I'm wrong.

The adtech industry, in particular Google and Amazon, have far too much money to give a flying shit about the chump change fines that regulators hand out for their criminal activities. To them it's just a cost of doing business. Facebook doesn't even bother to abide by TCF -- they answer to no one.

Nothing will change until someone goes to jail.

Here in the U.S. there are no laws against anything.The closest thing we have to regulation in the corrupt online ad industry is something called the CCPA (California Consumer Protection Act.) It is based largely on the GDPR and as far as anyone can tell has never protected anyone from anything (it will be replaced next year by another bowl of alphabet soup called the CPRA.)

The IAB in the US has taken the IAB Europe's illegal TCF formula and applied it as their bogus compliance with CCPA. They've also convinced the clowns, con men, and collaborators in the ANA, 4As, and big brands to implement the now discredited TCF under a new bullshit name, "Global Privacy Platform." Yeah, right.

Big picture: The arrogance of the tech and marketing industries in the US is so immense that the actions of regulators mean close to nothing. What is the most likely effect the ruling this week will have on data abuse in the U.S.? Counting backwards, what comes after zero?

Have I mentioned that nothing will change until someone goes to jail?

There is no one in the world with a functioning brain who doesn't understand that the tracking-based adtech industry is a criminal racket of epic proportions. It is a giant worldwide scam -- organized crime at a global scale involving virtually every major corporation, pretty sounding trade organizations, and the entire advertising, marketing, and online media industries. Even the IAB is on record as telling the European Commission that programmatic buying based on real-time bidding is "incompatible with consent under GDPR."

But too many people are making too much money. Nothing will change until someone... oh, never mind.

There are 7.7 billion people on Earth. But according to Google's ceo Sundar Pichai, Google has 15 billion daily active users! Amazing what these tech guys can do.

And you believe Google Analytics, right?

Recently Mark found himself to be bored. He'd just turned 65 and was restless. In typically outrageous Mark fashion, he decided to apply for an internship at several agencies.

Denton was hired as an intern by one of London's top creative agencies, St Luke's. Denton said, “I genuinely want to know how the creative department and teams work. This might sound like a gimmick, but I am here to learn and learning should be a part of our entire career – also, I have no doubt the creative teams here might learn a thing or two from me too.”

I would like to suggest to agencies that there is a very useful and productive place for people like Mark in contemporary advertising. By "people like Mark" I mean very creative individuals who know advertising inside-out and are probably ten times better at it than the average "creatives" in your agency, but are retired or can no longer tolerate the stupidity of agency operations.

Some industrial companies used to have people called "senior scientists," I'm not sure if they still do. They were brilliant scientists who were treated as brains in a bottle. They were too smart and too valuable to be made to go through the hoops of daily corporate horseshit. Instead, their job was to sit in a corner and dream stuff up. An example: 3M had a scientist who was working with adhesives and discovered a very shitty, un-sticky type of glue. This became the basis for Post-It notes.

Ad agencies, drowning in technology and starving for creativity, would be massively benefited by having these kind of people around. I can think of half a dozen (at least) people I know who are retired from the business but would be incredibly valuable to any agency or marketing department. Just sit 'em in a corner and let them think about your hardest problems.

While over 1/3 of Americans are over 50, the number of people over 50 in the ad industry is 7%. Rampant ageism in advertising? Nah.

As Wired puts it..."one American man in a T-shirt, pajama pants, and slippers, (sat) in his living room night after night, watching Alien movies and eating spicy corn snacks—and periodically (went) over to his home office to check on the progress of the programs he was running to disrupt the internet of an entire country."

Personally, when I'm taking down a country's internet, I prefer potato chips to spicy corn snacks. But that's just me...

Here in the real world, there were unconfirmed reports of smug blogweasels gloating.

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