As ad tech firms reveal data flows to foreign adversaries, Sen. Ron Wyden preps bill to restrict data exports

By Kate Kaye

It’s not quite a smoking gun, but it’s just the sort of information that Sen. Ron Wyden’s staff suspected would indicate how ad tech data can make its way into the hands of foreign governments with ill intentions against people in the U.S.

In early April, when Wyden and other senators sent letters in early April to digital ad companies including AT&T, Google, Twitter and Verizon Media, the Oregon Democrat wanted details about the firms they pass precise location information and other data to along the complex chain of players in the global real-time bidding (RTB) ad marketplace. In particular, the legislators wanted to know whether any of those firms receiving the data are based in countries where authoritarian or adversarial governments or bad actors could access the data and use the information to target dissidents residing in the U.S., perpetrate disinformation campaigns or worse.

Now — despite the fact that most of the eight firms in the inquiry provided little or no detail about the companies they send ad data to — information from Magnite and Twitter reveals that they have partners based in countries of concern such as China, Turkey, Russia and the United Arab Emirates.

Because governments in those countries could access programmatic ad data about people in the U.S. and use it in ways that threaten national security, Wyden’s staff believes the information validates legislation he expects to propose in the coming months that could place restrictions on ad-tech data flows outside the country and penalize violators.

“There’s a misunderstanding in the [advertising] industry of the dangers posed by ad tech,” said Margaret Hu, professor of law and international affairs at Penn State Law and School of International Affairs and part of the school’s College of Engineering Institute for Network and Security Research faculty.

According to letters sent in response to the Senate inquiry obtained by Digiday, Magnite listed partners including China’s Mobvista International, Turkey’s Turkticaret and U.A.E.’s AdFalcon. In Twitter’s response, the company pointed to a publicly available list of firms that partner with its mobile ad network MoPub and said it works with Russian firm Hybrid as well as China-based firms MobVista and Pangle, which is run by TikTok’s owner ByteDance.

“There’s a clear national security risk whenever Americans’ private data is sent to high-risk countries like China and Russia, which can use it for online tracking as well as to target hacking and disinformation campaigns,” said Wyden in a statement sent to Digiday. “Advertising companies have shown little restraint or judgement when it comes to putting their own profits over Americans’ privacy and our national security. That needs to end. I’ll be introducing legislation in the coming months to address this threat and prohibit exports of Americans’ data to high-risk countries.”

The senator also admonished Google, AT&T, Pubmatic and Verizon — none of which provided any names of ad tech partners or countries where those partners are based. “No U.S. company should be sharing Americans’ sensitive information with our adversaries, but it’s especially …read more

Source:: Digiday