IAB chief brands critics of online ad industry 'extremist'

IAB chief executive David Cohen has launched a scathing attack on critics of the online advertising industry, branding privacy activists, academics, politicians, and even Apple as “extremists”.

In a bizarre keynote at the IAB’s annual leadership event in Florida last week, the trade body boss he positioned the advertising industry as a noble, liberating force.

He claimed publishers, platforms, brands, ad agencies, private equity and venture capital, martech and ad tech were innocent parties caught in the crossfire between regulators and big tech, and attacked by “extremists” on all sides.

He added: “Extremists are winning the battle for hearts and minds in Washington DC and beyond. We cannot let that happen. These extremists are political opportunists who’ve made it their mission to cripple the advertising industry and eliminate it from the American economy and culture.”

Cohen, who used the word “extremist” ten times in his speech, also branded the argument that online tracking is used to shape behaviour and society – put forward by Shoshana Zuboff in the book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism – as “dystopian nonsense” and “insane.”

However, Cohen reserved his biggest outburst for Apple, insisting the company exemplifies “the cynicism and hypocrisy that underpins the prevailing extremist view”.

Accusing the company of trying “to smother the advertising industry, just like they did to the recorded music industry”, Cohen added: “Apple’s aims to let them expand their advertising business while rewriting the rule book so the rest of the industry can’t compete.”

He concluded: “We have to take on the extremists if we want to survive.”