CTV Needs to Get Its Act Together

I’m Alan Chapell. I’ve been working at the intersection of privacy, competition, advertising, and music for decades, and I’m now a regulatory analyst writing for The Monopoly Report.

The latest Monopoly Report podcast!

 This week, I welcome Cory Doctorow, a Canadian-British author, science fiction writer, activist, and journalist known for his work on technology, privacy, and digital rights. Cory joins the pod to talk about his latest book, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It. Cory shares his views on the three stages of enshittification, its root causes, and the underlying social movement that is critical to addressing (and perhaps even reversing) its impact. We also talk about some of the endemic challenges facing the digital ads space.

CTV is heading for a reckoning

If you work in the CTV space, please do me a favor. Go ahead and opt-out of your company’s ad targeting, profiling, sale/sharing, etc.

I’ll wait right here while you do.

OK. Done? How easy was it? Did your opt-out take effect? Would you know if your opt-out mechanism didn’t work?

Depending on your answers, it just might be time for you to have a chat with your legal folks. A bunch of different regulators are looking at your opt-out, and my guess is that that they aren’t nearly as sympathetic to the challenges of the CTV space as you are.

Leave me alone. Everything is just fine!

At the beginning of 2025, everything was warm and rosy for the CTV space. This era of good feelings was partly driven by the significant growth. And when Google announced a policy shift with respect to the use of probabilistic IDs within Google’s ecosystem, it signaled that Google wasn’t going to be sheriff of the CTV space.

So you might ask: Where’s the problem?

CTV = Wild West

In the ads space, we love our Wild West environments. Many ad tech OGs continue to fondly recount the days in ad tech before all these damn roadblocks were in place, back when REAL innovation was happening. Back before GDPR, and all those state laws… and before Google and Apple starting imposing rules.

Once those rules were imposed, CTV became kind of the oasis of the ad space. Like Montauk, circa 1990: an unspoiled beach.

But with all this growth, it was only a matter of time before regulators started to pay more attention to CTV. And it didn’t happen overnight.

Chapter 1: California’s Smart TV Enforcement Sweep

Almost two years ago (January 2024), California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced an investigative sweep of the smart TV space and sent letters to streaming app and device companies, alleging that they fail to comply with the CCPA opt-out requirements. The biggest concern was that companies don’t make opting out easy for consumers in a CTV environment.

That was the first shot across the bow.

Chapter 2: Europe Looks at CTV… and Shudders

In September 2025, the data protection authorities of The Netherlands, Hungary, Italy, and Liechtenstein published a report after a joint exploratory investigation into the smart TV space. The research focused on three “smart” televisions from different manufacturers, with a particular focus on data streams that are often not visible to consumers.

The investigation revealed pervasive data collection and ecosystem opacity that challenges fundamental privacy principles. A few things jumped out at me:

• Smart TVs collect a LOT of data (duh)

• Smart TVs often collect that data when the smart TV is off (uh oh).

• Regulators can’t figure out who to hold accountable, as you all seem to point the finger at each other (gotta love ad tech).

• Apps are being downloaded and pre-installed in ways that don’t make sense (sounds like what someone was saying about AppLovin).

Most of the allegations echo previous EU critiques of the desktop and mobile app ad tech markets. So on some level, there’s nothing new here. But that’s not really the point.

This is the second shot across the bow, as the report signals that regulatory focus is coming to the CTV space.

OK. You might be thinking: Sure, but European regulators don’t exactly move at the speed of light. And the EU folks have been complaining about the digital ads marketplace since at least 2002. So the fact that they have issues with the CTV space is a concern, but it might be closer to a 2030 concern than a 2026 concern.

Fair enough.

Want a free 30 minute strategy or compliance session on privacy / regulatory in digital media? Click HERE to get smarter about how your business is impacted by privacy with Chapell & Associates.

Chapter 3: California ALSO focused on CTV

On Sept. 23, 2025, the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) announced that a new set of rules and regulations were approved and would begin to take effect in January 2026. These new CCPA regulations cover off on a whole bunch of things, such as security audits, dark patterns, automated decision-making, and opt-out rules. (Hire a privacy pro to find out more.)

The part of this that’s really noteworthy is below:

Under these new CCPA regulations, if your company sells or shares personal information that it collects through a connected device (e.g., a smart television) you are required to provide opt-out notice in a manner that ensures that the consumer will encounter the notice before or at the time the device begins collecting the personal information that it sells or shares.

The biggest point I’m making is that California is formally declaring that CTV is on their radar in 2026.

So you can’t exactly say you weren’t warned. It’s coming.

Chapter 4: California brings it all full circle

On October 30, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a $530,000 settlement with Sling TV that just might be the event that gets the attention of the larger CTV space. The settlement addresses what prosecutors characterized as a systematic failure to provide meaningful opt-out mechanisms for data selling and sharing or for Sling’s use of third-party data for cross-context behavioral advertising.

I’m not here to praise or bury SlingTV. But I am here to say two things:

1. I suspect that Sling is not an outlier.

2. Regulators are clearly starting to notice.

What you choose to do with this information is up to you.

____________________________________________________________________________

If there’s an area that you want to see covered on these pages, if you agree or disagree with something I’ve written, if you want to tell me you dig my music, or if you just want to yell at me, please reach out to me on LinkedIn or in the comments below.