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Regulators waved through Publicis's $2.2bn LiveRamp deal — but only behind a five-year consent order built to stop the holding company weaponising its data.

Florida has asked a court to force Meta to change how Facebook and Instagram work for minors, escalating a lawsuit that accuses the company of addicting young users.

Walmart's CEO has pledged the retailer will not use AI or customer data to set personalized prices, drawing a public line against 'surveillance pricing' as its Sparky AI expands.

France's Alliance Digitale has reopened its Privacy Protection - Pact, a GDPR data-protection label, updating it for 2026 as privacy scrutiny intensifies.

France's ad-tech is building a 'sovereign' first-party identity layer as cookies fade. Why owning your identity infrastructure is the new source of leverage.

In the UK you almost always need someone's permission before sending them a marketing email or text - unless you can tick every box of the 'soft opt-in' exemption. Marketing to other businesses is lighter-touch, but not a free-for-all. And since 5 February 2026 the ICO can fine breaches up to £17.5 million, so a permission-based list isn't just good manners - it's the law. What counts as direct marketing (and why it matters) Direct marketing is any advertising or promotional

Grindr has agreed to pay £26m to settle a UK group action from around 12,000 users over alleged data-sharing with ad partners — a landmark warning on the cost of ad-targeting data leaks.

TL;DR: Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is Google's free tool for measuring what happens on your website, and since Universal Analytics shut down in July 2023 it is the only version available. For a UK small business it answers three questions that matter: where your visitors come from, what they do once they arrive, and which channels actually turn into enquiries or sales. Set it up once, mark your key events, link it to Google Ads and Search Console, add a consent banner for UK GDP

Mall giant Simon Property Group is pitching advertisers on first-party location and foot-traffic data from its properties, reframing 'retail media' to include the mall itself.

The ICO has fined Cardiff firm Elderly Aids Ltd £190,000 for making 758,053 unsolicited marketing calls to TPS-registered people — while selling call-blocking devices.

Two telecoms rivals have pooled their permission-based mobile audiences into a single 11.5-million-strong SMS and RCS advertising offer — and the engagement numbers are hard to ignore.

US sleep-tech firm Eight Sleep calls Germany its most important Continental market, growing roughly 4x on a hardware-plus-subscription model.

The FTC has finalised orders against Cox Media Group and two partners over a deceptively marketed 'Active Listening' AI ad product, totalling about $930,000.

France's Constitutional Council struck down the law banning social media for under-15s, and President Macron has called for a fresh, 'legally robust' text.

Amazon is training its AI models on Twitch streamer content by default — a policy switch that landed with French creators mid-August and forces every French marketer to re-read its influencer contracts.

The FTC has proposed an enforcement policy on personalized pricing, signalling that using consumer data to set individual prices could be unfair or deceptive — a shot across martech’s bow.

Germany’s Bundeskartellamt has closed its probe into Apple’s App Tracking Transparency, extracting binding commitments to align consent prompts for Apple’s own and third-party apps.

LiveRamp shareholders approved Publicis’s $2.2bn acquisition at $38.50 a share, but rejected an $82.6m executive golden-parachute package in a separate advisory vote.

The FTC, with California and Utah, has sued Hims & Hers for allegedly sharing sensitive health data with ad platforms including Meta and Snap — a stark warning on first-party data in ad targeting.