Every time you load a web page, your personal data is being shared with thousands of companies. The ad spaces on the page are being auctioned off to the highest bidder in fractions of a second. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties calls this the biggest data breach in history, and is suing the ad tech companies on your behalf to stop this needlessly invasive and dangerous practice. My guest Johnny Ryan will explain how this real-time bidding process works and has insider documentation on the types of extremely personal data that's being shared in order to target those ads to you.

Dr Johnny Ryan is a Senior Fellow at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, and a Senior Fellow at the Open Markets Institute. He is focused on surveillance, data rights, competition/anti-trust, and privacy. He is former Chief Policy & Industry Relations Officer at Brave, the private web browser. Dr Ryan led Brave’s campaign for GDPR enforcement, and liaised with government and industry colleagues globally. Previously, Dr. Ryan worked in adtech, media, and policy. His previous roles included Chief Innovation Officer of The Irish Times and Senior Researcher at the Institute of International & European Affairs (IIEA).

Further Info:

Irish Council for Civil Liberties lawsuit: https://www.iccl.ie/rtb-june-2021/ 

Johnny Ryan: https://www.iccl.ie/staff/dr-johnny-ryan/ 

IAB Audience Taxonomy: https://www.iab.com/guidelines/audience-taxonomy/

IAB Content Taxonomy: https://www.iab.com/guidelines/content-taxonomy/

OpenRTB 3.0 spec: https://github.com/InteractiveAdvertisingBureau/openrtb

Browser plugin: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bidfilter-header-bidding/addamgcbhieigmdmmaooppajdocgggck

FTC’s data broker report from 2014: Data Brokers: A Call for Transparency and Accountability

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