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Plain-English explainers for the AdTech concepts and privacy laws that shape the industry — sourced, and linked to the companies involved.
Laws & regulation
- GDPRThe EU's data-protection law. It governs how personal data — including the cookie IDs and device IDs ad tech runs on — may be collected and used.
- ePrivacy DirectiveThe EU directive on privacy in electronic communications. Its Article 5(3) is why sites ask consent before storing or reading cookies on a user's device.
- CCPA/CPRACalifornia's privacy law. It lets residents opt out of the sale or sharing of their data, including sharing for cross-context behavioral advertising.
- US state privacy lawsA patchwork of comprehensive state privacy laws that give residents rights over their data, often including an opt-out of targeted advertising.
- COPPAThe US law, enforced through the FTC's COPPA Rule, that requires parental consent before collecting personal information from children under 13.
- COPPA 2.0 / KOSANot law yetProposed US bills, not law, to extend children’s online privacy rules to teens, restrict ads targeted at minors and require safer defaults for young users.
- DMAThe EU law that sets do’s and don’ts for “gatekeeper” platforms, including limits on using personal data for ads and price transparency for ad buyers.
- DSAThe EU's rulebook for online platforms. It requires ad labels, limits ads aimed at minors or based on sensitive data, and mandates public ad repositories.
- EU AI ActThe EU's risk-based AI law. It bans some practices, regulates high-risk uses and requires AI-generated content to be marked or disclosed.
- TikTok lawThe 2024 US law that barred app stores and hosts from serving TikTok unless its US operations were separated from ByteDance through a qualified divestiture.
Concepts
- RTBBuying and selling ad inventory one impression at a time, through an instant programmatic auction that runs as the page loads.
- Header biddingA technique that lets publishers collect bids from many demand sources at once, before calling the ad server, so they compete with the ad server's own ads.
- SPOHow buyers choose the most efficient, transparent routes to ad inventory — backed by the ads.txt, sellers.json and SupplyChain standards.
- CurationPackaging ad inventory with audience or other data into a deal that buyers can target — a form of targeting that happens on the sell side.
- CTVA TV connected to the internet — a smart TV, or a standard set with a streaming stick or console — and the streaming ads served on it.
- Contextual advertisingChoosing ads by the content of the page, app or video they appear next to, rather than by a person's browsing history or personal data.
- DCRA cloud service where companies combine and analyze each other’s data under agreed rules that limit what can be seen, used and exported.
- MMMA statistical method that estimates how much each marketing activity — TV, digital, promotions, pricing — contributed to sales, using aggregate data.
- MCPAn open standard for connecting AI applications to outside data and tools — now used by ad-industry protocols so AI agents can plan and buy media.