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heybellman swodinsky lynneluvah robinberjon A good entry point for ad tech knowledge I always recommend is cjr.org/tow_center_reports/the-guide-to-advertising-technology.php from watkins_welcome. As for what to do about it? That's such a huge discussion with so many different pieces and at this point more than one gov't report with some very different stances...
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heybellman swodinsky lynneluvah robinberjon watkins_welcome At this point there are great legit reads written by johnnyryan, metaviv, profcarroll and jason_kint. It is a really big problem, but one that has so many different... angles? vulnerabilities? holes in the wall? So it's hard to think of any one comprehensive solutions work.
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heybellman swodinsky lynneluvah robinberjon watkins_welcome johnnyryan metaviv profcarroll jason_kint Like... we could prob spend a whole paper just talking about the way agency incentives work, create problems, impact fraud in the system, and could be dealt with, and that is like... just one sliver of the system that you could spend a lifetime writing about.
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heybellman swodinsky lynneluvah robinberjon watkins_welcome johnnyryan metaviv profcarroll jason_kint They are mostly designed for total lay people (which is not a criticism, that's really hard to do!) and not really in the style of white papers or at their depth, but I also really recommend AdContrarian's blog posts and books.
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heybellman swodinsky lynneluvah robinberjon watkins_welcome johnnyryan metaviv profcarroll jason_kint AdContrarian He does a very good job of understanding the problems at depth and translating them to the straightforward descriptions of the problems: lack of transparency, predatory value extraction, greed for user data (and in general), and trust.
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heybellman swodinsky lynneluvah robinberjon watkins_welcome johnnyryan metaviv profcarroll jason_kint AdContrarian But turning those into policy suggestions means overcoming a purposeful obscuring of how the business works by many of the people within it, a serious set of antitrust issues, & highly technical content which can be hard to not just understand, but see the flow of to regulate...
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heybellman swodinsky lynneluvah robinberjon watkins_welcome johnnyryan metaviv profcarroll jason_kint AdContrarian As swodinsky notes (& often writes about!) the core issue is that ad tech is a maze of twisty corridors *intended* to obscure the very nature of many of its problems, & designed to leak data at every level. Policy faces duel obstacles in regulating flow & untangling complexity.