Dive Brief:

• Google has announced a solution that will support publishers that want to show only ads that are not personalized for consumers who opt out of data collection for targeting, as part of its plan to help publishers comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that goes into effect in Europe on May 25, according to an Ad Exchanger report. 
• In a letter to its partners outlining its plan to prepare for GDPR, Google also said it is launching new controls for DFP/AdX programmatic transactions, AdSense for Content, AdSense for Games and AdMob that will allow for more control over which third parties measure and serve ads to users on a publisher’s site or app, per Ad Exchanger.
• Google also said that it will limit the processing of personal information for children under the GDPR Age of Consent. It will unveil new controls for Google Analytics users to manage retention and deletion of their data. It is also looking for new consent solutions for publishers, including working with advertising industry groups, like the IAB Europe. 

Dive Insight:

Over the past several months, major brands and tech giants have been working on plans to comply with GDPR, which could levy hefty fines for those that don’t follow the regulations. However, many marketers have gravely underestimated how big of a burden of meeting with the new GDPR requirements, according to Forrester’s predictions previously made available to Marketing Dive. While Google will be gathering consent for the collection of user data on its own properties, including Gmail and YouTube, the company is placing much of the burden on third-party publishers and advertisers for getting consent to continue gathering information that it needs to target ads, according to Ad Exchanger.

IAB Europe GDPR working group has created a framework to help publishers offer more transparency in how they collect and used data and gather consent to do so, per a separate Ad Exchanger report. While GDPR requires marketers to impose more stringent privacy requirements on their data collection and use, it could pay off for brands. Marketers that are transparent and communicate how they use customer data to target ads can see engagement levels rise as high as 40% and purchase intent increase, according to research by Maritz Motivation Solutions and the Harvard Business School.

Google's moves come as consumers are becoming more concerned with how brands and social media platforms gather and use their personal information. Facebook’s recent troubles over how it handled personal data of 50 million users and how it was transmitted without their knowledge to the Trump-backed data firm Cambridge Analytica has put a spotlight on the issue. As a result, advertisers, like Mozilla, have pulled their ads, saying the platform needs to strengthen its default privacy settings for third-party apps. In addressing the controversy, Facebook outlined a plan that would largely put much of the privacy burden on developers, including auditing developers and limiting their access to data and the data that users can provide them.