Episode 42: Retail Media, Data and the Regulators

Episode summary

Retailers have built advertising businesses on top of their customer data, and regulators have noticed. In Episode 42, Daniel Achterberg and Grace Whitcombe speak with Tomás Ellery-Vance and Lucia Ferrante about the privacy and competition questions that retail media networks raise, and how a single program can face scrutiny from several directions at once.

The guests discuss consent and opt-out obligations under US state laws and GDPR, the use of clean rooms and data sharing with brands, and antitrust concerns about self-preferencing on marketplaces. They also explain how a compliance program can be built once and applied across jurisdictions. The episode runs about 34 minutes.

Chapter notes

• 00:00 Introduction. Why retail media is one of the fastest-growing parts of retail, and why that attracts attention.
• 03:50 Privacy rules. Tomás walks through targeted advertising opt-outs, sensitive data and universal opt-out signals.
• 12:20 Data sharing and clean rooms. What counts as a sale or share, and what contracts with brands need to say.
• 20:05 Competition law. Lucia explains self-preferencing, ranking and access to data on marketplaces in the EU and UK.
• 28:30 Building one program. How to design controls that satisfy the strictest regime.
• 32:10 Quick takeaways. Each guest offers one action to take this quarter.

Hosts and guests

Hosts: Daniel Achterberg and Grace Whitcombe.

Guests: Tomás Ellery-Vance, Partner, Privacy & Cyber, Washington, D.C.; Lucia Ferrante, Partner, Antitrust & Competition, Brussels.