The metaphorical Pandora's box has been opened, and the contents aren't going back in. Best we can hope for is practical legislation. The EU is ahead on this one. Its GDPR is going to throw a massive wrench in these practices.
I don't think that GDPR is going to disrupt the google/facebook dominance in advertising nor curtail their collecting data about you. In fact, I believe GDPR rewards their walled garden/integration strategy.
The most onerous and problematic parts of GDPR for adtech companies is the acquisition of consent to share the data they gather with their partners. This means that every barrier from publisher, to ad network, to advertiser needs to be consented. Google/Facebook are themselves massive players at each of those levels and therefore can skip that step.
We don't know what will happen in the future, but I suspect that Google/Facebook will leverage their systems at both the publisher and advertiser areas to put more of the ecosystem into their systems.
This may be ok, consolidating your information into a couple of big players that have an even more holistic view of you might be preferable to having little views of you all over the internet. But its worse for advertisers and publishers and I find it disconcerting.
* Disclaimer: I work on GDPR related topics, this is my opinion and not that of my employer
The most onerous and problematic parts of GDPR for adtech companies is the acquisition of consent to share the data they gather with their partners. This means that every barrier from publisher, to ad network, to advertiser needs to be consented. Google/Facebook are themselves massive players at each of those levels and therefore can skip that step.
We don't know what will happen in the future, but I suspect that Google/Facebook will leverage their systems at both the publisher and advertiser areas to put more of the ecosystem into their systems.
This may be ok, consolidating your information into a couple of big players that have an even more holistic view of you might be preferable to having little views of you all over the internet. But its worse for advertisers and publishers and I find it disconcerting.
* Disclaimer: I work on GDPR related topics, this is my opinion and not that of my employer