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Good morning, Marketers, and this is getting absurd

The Banning Surveillance Advertising bill introduced to the House of Representatives this week is worth reading. It’s not long. Take a peek: “An advertising facilitator may not target the dissemination of an advertisement; or knowingly enable an advertiser or a third party to target the dissemination of an advertisement, including by providing the advertiser or third party with (the) contact information of an individual.”

If that doesn’t have the effect, inadvertent or not, of banning targeting based on first-party data I wish someone would explain to me why not. What’s more, the text of the bill nowhere defines “advertising.” But it gets better.

Browsing for coverage of the bill, I came across this site that reflects support for the legislation from a whole bunch of action groups. And what’s that at the top of the page? Oh, it’s a form to fill out so they can target you with…ads? As I said, the bill doesn’t define what an ad is. With the additional result that, if passed, it would seem to ban any kind of targeted political advertising. Oops.

Kim Davis

Editorial Director

Shorts 

What we’re reading. The “Global Digital Futurists Power List” published by Engatica. But we’re not agreeing with all of it. Sadella, yes; Zuckerberg, if you must — but Neal Stephenson, the sci-fi novelist at number four? Okay, he came up with the term “metaverse” 30 years ago. He beats Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, who is in the number five slot, despite the prospect of Epic Games playing a major practical role in the metaverse (once it’s open for business).

About The Author

Kim Davis is the Editorial Director of MarTech. Born in London, but a New Yorker for over two decades, Kim started covering enterprise software ten years ago. His experience encompasses SaaS for the enterprise, digital- ad data-driven urban planning, and applications of SaaS, digital technology, and data in the marketing space. He first wrote about marketing technology as editor of Haymarket’s The Hub, a dedicated marketing tech website, which subsequently became a channel on the established direct marketing brand DMN. Kim joined DMN proper in 2016, as a senior editor, becoming Executive Editor, then Editor-in-Chief a position he held until January 2020. Prior to working in tech journalism, Kim was Associate Editor at a New York Times hyper-local news site, The Local: East Village, and has previously worked as an editor of an academic publication, and as a music journalist. He has written hundreds of New York restaurant reviews for a personal blog, and has been an occasional guest contributor to Eater.