In today’s digest, we explore lawsuits filed against The Trade Desk over alleged consumer privacy violations, growing concerns around OpenAI’s reduced AI model safety testing, and how a lack of customer-centric focus is costing creative agencies.

The Trade Desk Faces Two Lawsuits Over Alleged Consumer Privacy Violations

The Trade Desk has been hit with two class action lawsuits accusing the ad tech company of secretly violating consumer privacy laws by tracking users online without their knowledge or consent.

The latest lawsuit, filed in the Central District of California on 31st March, claims that The Trade Desk’s Unified ID 2.0 (UID2) identifier collects personally identifiable information, such as email addresses and phone numbers, to build user profiles and facilitate real-time bidding, all without proper disclosure. 

 Another class action lawsuit was brought against the company on 28th March in the Northern District of California, alleging that it illegally tracked millions of consumers via its advertising platform, Adsrvr. According to the Plaintiff, Adsrvr Pixel operates like a data broker, following individuals across websites and devices, allegedly de-anonymising their online activity.

The lawsuits allege that millions of internet users have been impacted by The Trade Desk’s practices, raising significant concerns over transparency and data protection in the digital advertising industry.

OpenAI Reduces Model Safety Testing Time

OpenAI has significantly reduced the time and resources devoted to safety testing its AI models, raising concerns that the company is prioritising speed over security. Sources familiar with OpenAI’s internal processes claim that safety testing has become less rigorous, with insufficient time allocated to properly identify and mitigate risks. The shift comes amid mounting pressure to accelerate model releases and maintain a competitive advantage in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.

Where evaluations once took several months, staff and third party testers now have much less time to assess the risks and performance of new large language models. Testers had less than a week to carry out safety checks for OpenAI’s o3 model, due to be released this week, which is designed for complex tasks such as problem solving and reasoning.

A source said: “We had more thorough safety testing when [the technology] was less important.”

Lack of Customer-Centric Focus is costing Creative Agencies

A new global study by VML reveals a widening disconnect between agencies and brands when it comes to digital transformation. Based on insights from over 4,000 business leaders across key markets, including China and India, the study finds that creative and digital marketing agencies are no longer the partners of choice for executing transformation initiatives.

The report highlights a common pitfall in digital transformation which is inadequate customer-centricity. Nearly 70% of business leaders believe most transformation projects are too internally focused. They believe technology is prioritised over customer value. Businesses now prefer IT firms, AI specialists, and tech consulting companies, with only 16% working with digital marketing agencies and just 11% relying on creative advertising agencies.