Dec. 19, 2025

Episode 153: Scott Spencer invented RTB, now he’s taking on cookie banners

Episode 153: Scott Spencer invented RTB, now he’s taking on cookie banners
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Scott Spencer, co-founder of Rewarded Interest and former DoubleClick and Google product leader, explains why cookie banners failed, how consumer privacy still feels broken, and what it takes to give users real control without hurting publishers or advertisers.


Takeaways

  • RTB wasn’t invented in a single moment. It emerged organically as multiple teams solved latency, bidding, and scale problems in parallel.
  • Cookie banners fail both consumers and regulators by creating friction without real control or understanding.
  • Rewarded Interest aims to replace site-by-site consent with centralized, programmatic privacy preferences across devices.
  • Privacy control likely belongs above the browser level, especially as agentic browsing and AI assistants become mainstream.
  • Changes proposed to GDPR may reduce protections around pseudonymous identifiers, increasing the need for user-centric control tools.
  • The industry risks pushing users toward ad blocking if it can’t offer meaningful, trusted privacy solutions.
  • Scott’s biggest regret from the RTB era isn’t technical. It’s not taking time to appreciate the magnitude of the transformation and the people behind it.


Chapters

00:00 Intro: Scott Spencer’s DoubleClick and Google legacy

01:29 Year-end notes: Marketecture Wrapped and MadDB.ai

03:35 Why Scott founded Rewarded Interest

05:00 Coalition for Better Ads and reducing ad blocking

06:20 Why cookie banners are broken

07:55 Centralized privacy control across the web

08:52 Browsers, OS-level identity, and agentic browsing

10:54 Minor mode and protecting children from tracking

12:10 Do consumers want granular control? Rewards and defaults

13:43 GDPR, Digital Omnibus, and Europe’s direction

18:21 Aligning incentives for users, publishers, and ad tech

21:56 22 years at DoubleClick and Google

22:12 Did Scott invent RTB? Network proxy bidding explained.

31:00 The Refresh: Google, Meta scams, and agentic ads

54:15 Wrap-up: YouTube vs Netflix and the Oscars move


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