The clock is ticking on Lina Khan’s future at the Federal Trade Commission.

As chair of the FTC, Khan has won praise from Elizabeth Warren, VP-elect JD Vance, and Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz for the pressure the FTC applied to Big Tech. She’s also picked up her fair share of detractors, including Elon Musk, who tweeted last month that “she will be fired soon.” It’s likely that, after President-elect Donald Trump takes office, he will replace her with a more business-friendly regulator.

Though her time at the agency will perhaps be best remembered for an increased focus on prosecuting antitrust cases, Khan’s FTC has also brought rare federal scrutiny to the advertising industry, waging a campaign aimed at curtailing commonplace industry data-collection practices and drawing the ire of advertisers and Big Tech alike.

Since her appointment in 2021—in what Politico described at the time as a “huge win for progressives”—Khan’s FTC has sued more than half a dozen companies for allegedly sharing customer data, warned companies about the “hidden impacts” of advertising tools like third-party tracking pixels, and attempted to establish new guidelines around how sensitive customer location data should be shared and sold. Under her leadership, the FTC’s willingness to get into the weeds of the digital advertising ecosystem is without precedent for an industry that, in the absence of federal data privacy protections, remains largely unregulated and left to self-govern.

Whatever her future at the agency, the advertising industry has acknowledged that, due in part to Khan’s influence, the days of unbridled data collection may be squarely behind it.

“This is an FTC that, under her tenure, has really gotten into the weeds about how data is collected, how it’s being shared,” Alison Pepper, EVP of government relations and sustainability at the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s), told Marketing Brew. “They’re thinking about consumer harm in a way that previous FTCs weren’t.”

Continue reading here.—RB

This story is the seventh in a series about how marketers for sports teams and leagues around the world approach social media strategy.

For some people, cheering on their favorite sports teams is one of their earliest memories—even if it was while wearing noise-canceling headphones.

Major League Soccer fandom tends to lock in place around the age of 13, according to Zach Riggar, the league’s VP of digital marketing and paid media. In an effort to connect with that group and other new potential fans of US soccer, MLS has recently increased its focus on social platforms including YouTube and TikTok, as well as off-pitch content, Riggar said.

“We’re always trying to find ways to be innovative and fresh and connect with fans in new and interesting ways,” Riggar told Marketing Brew. “If we’re going to be relevant in this challenger space of the global soccer landscape, we really have to convert fans…younger.”

Full field: MLS has a presence across all the social media platforms that are “relevant to our fans,” Riggar said, from LinkedIn to Instagram to Twitch. TikTok, though, is one of the league’s priorities at the moment, he said.

MLS struck up a partnership with the platform last year that includes the Club Creator Network, which pairs teams with creators to collaborate on content.

• As a result, the league has seen “explosive growth” on TikTok, Riggar said, with the MLS account now counting more than 4 million followers on the platform.

Read more here.—AM

Winter is coming: The air is cooling, the leaves are falling, and the 2025 predictions are rolling in.

As a tumultuous 2024 comes to a close, Forrester predicts that 2025 could be slightly more steady for marketers, but that they “shouldn’t get too comfortable.”

In a pair of reports detailing its expectations for media, advertising, and agencies in the year to come, Forrester detailed insights into the state of topics like brand safety, investment in social media platforms such as TikTok, and AI adoption in the marketing industry. We broke down some of the big takeaways.

Safety dance: In 2025, marketers will look to be more “brand smart” than brand safe, the authors of Forrester’s media and advertising predictions report wrote.

They anticipate that 10 “influential global brands will drop DoubleVerify” as their brand safety company, instead embracing new practices like swapping keyword exclusion lists with lists of publishers to include in their campaigns.

• The prediction is based on a finding from a Forrester CMO survey in which more than half (53%) of US B2C marketing execs said they’re becoming less “prudish” about brand safety.

Read more here.—AM

Stories we’re jealous of.

• The New York Times profiled Caleb Simpson, the creator who built a platform by asking people on the street to show off their homes.
• Vox wrote about how election anxiety triggered an earlier-than-usual Christmas season.
• The Atlantic wrote about the rise of the “bro economy” and the anticipated surge in day-trading, sports betting, and crypto.