Publicis Wins Mars’ $1.7B Global Media

Siding against Google, a federal appellate court on Tuesday revived a privacy lawsuit brought by Chrome users who said the company wrongly gathered information about their web-browsing activity. In a unanimous 23-page decision, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers's determination that the plaintiffs consented to Google's alleged practices, which she said were disclosed in various privacy policies. The appellate panel ruled that questions regarding Chrome users' consent to data collection require further analysis, and sent the case back to Rogers for additional proceedings.

Montana lawmakers on Friday passed a privacy bill that gives state residents new rights to wield control over data about them, including the right to reject some forms of targeted advertising. Senate Bill 384 now heads to Governor Greg Gianforte for signature. Lawmakers in seven other states have passed comprehensive privacy laws -- California, Connecticut, Colorado, Utah, Virginia, Iowa and Indiana. If enacted, the Montana bill will give residents the right to opt out of the use of data linkable to them -- including pseudonymous data, such as information stored on cookies -- for behaviorally targeted ads.

The U.S. advertising marketplace fell 4.6% in September vs. the same month a year ago, marking the fourth consecutive monthly decline, and suggesting the beginning of a new U.S. ad recession. While the June-September 2022 declines compare with healthy gains for the same months a year ago, the 2021 boom was also the beginning of downward trend (see chart above). The new monthly data comes as major agency holding company forecast units have been reaffirming double-digit growth expectations for calendar year 2022 and mid-single-digit gains for 2023, at least at this point.