China’s privay landscape China’s privacy landscape presents stark contrasts with the U.S. In the U.S., users enjoy a measure of anonymity, often completing online purchases without even logging in. In contrast, China mandates the registration of phone numbers for almost any online service, driven by legal requirements and platforms’ strategies to build robust first-party databases. While the U.S. retains a relatively decentralized approach to privacy, where data brokers and advertisers freely exchange third-party data, China has erected massive digital “walled gardens....

Third-party cookies play a pivotal role in constructing comprehensive user profiles, allowing data collectors to segment consumers for targeted advertising. By focusing ads on specific segments rather than the general population, the relevance—and consequently, the value—of each advertisement significantly increases. Advertisement sellers, such as demand-side platforms linking to the ad-exchange marketplace, and ad networks (that links ad supply and demand directly) like Google Ads, thrive on this model. Their business hinges on offering advanced targeting technologies that leverage both user privacy data and broad access to ad markets....

Privacy laws worldwide require companies to obtain a certain degree of consent from users before collecting and using their private data. Common examples include a cookie pop-up or a privacy notice. an example for cookie consent—we always read them thoroughly, right? Major regulations, known as privacy laws, include the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA). These laws specify the legal requirements for websites to inform users about data use and their rights....

Data (e.g. data sets, data streams and data services) are collected and sold by data brokers, via data exchange platforms (the marketplace). Data Commerce Cloud (a ‘data monetization’ platform for data suppliers) listed a directory of data marketplaces. A data marketplace can be operated by companies (e.g. professional data marketplace business), government agencies (e.g. Shanghai data exchange), or third-party providers (Amazon and Google). The global market for data is valued USD 968 million in 2022....

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Consider a scenario where a user visits a publisher’s website to read an article. If the publisher has sold its ad-display space to Google, Google will then access the user’s 3rd-party cookies to retrieve the user’s UID (Unique Identifier). This allows Google to match the user with its online database, analyzing the user’s preferences and other data collected from previous website visits. Using this private information, Google can then align the user with advertisers who are targeting specific user segments....

Cookies are small text files that hold a modest amount of data specific to a particular user and website. There are two types of cookies: First-Party Cookies. Stored and used by the same webserver entity: eg. NY Times stores user’s login info and language preference. Third-Party Cookies: The cookie is not being set by the news site directly (the first party), but by a separate entity (the third party). Third-party cookies are used by a third party to collect user information, while the user is browsing on the internet....

Cookies are small text files that hold a modest amount of data specific to a particular user and website. It is stored locally on a user’s computer. The website specifies what data should be stored in the cookie, such as user ID, session keys, or preferences. I really like this example: Imagine a website is like a hotel. The hotel wants each returning guest to have their room personalized to their requests each time they visit....

Market size and market share for adtech industry/online advertisement ecosystem The online advertising market is dominated by a few major players, with significant regional variations. The global online advertising industry continues to grow, at about $600 ~ $700 billion today, and showing no signs of slowing down [6]. Global market size of digital advertising. Source. The market is highly concentrated. Based on data in 2019, Google and Facebook (Meta) account for approximately half of the digital advertising global revenue [2]....

The AdTech ecosystem is rich, complex, and difficult to navigate. Demand-side platforms (DSPs), unless they are hidden behind another layer like Agency Trading Desks, act as intermediaries between advertisers and ad exchanges. They function similarly to the relationship between a stock exchange, consumers, and securities. DSPs depend heavily on third-party cookies. Through the process of cookie syncing, cookies and all privacy information are ultimately collected by DSPs. They use this data to segment consumers and sell these segments to advertisers, in addition to providing other services such as data management, analytic services, and insights....