Will Microsoft Do Not Track Policy Threaten Future of Ad Exchanges?

By emeadows
September 26, 2012

If Microsoft succeeds in convincing the browser industry that its “Do Not Track” is the right way to go, “Facebook’s new FBX ad exchange could be ‘marginalized dramatically’ — and the web ad exchange business generally could be destroyed,” reports Business Insider.
“Real-time bidding on ad exchanges that target people via cookies is currently a $2 billion business, according to Bloomberg,” explains the article. And Facbook, through its FBX, is expected to capture a full $1 billion of that market in time.
But not all think it will work out that way for Facebook. “Eric Wheeler, CEO of social ad targeting company 33Across, and Jason Bier, chief privacy officer of ValueClick, both told me they regard IE10 and its default DNT position as a fundamental threat to FBX and the online ad business generally,” notes Business Insider.
If that same sort of default DNT position were to be adopted within Firefox and/or Chrome, “then any company that relied on cookies serving data collected from other websites — so called ‘third-party data’ — could go out of business,” the article explains.
Ad exchanges are used more frequently by small businesses than by large media publishers, which prefer to sell directly to clients. “I’m quite scared for small businesses out there,” says Bier. “They’re going to get destroyed. Facebook will survive this. Small businesses won’t.”

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