The Future of Adtech Data

By Bridget Anderson, Chief Customer Officer

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One of the common questions we receive from public sector partners is around the long-term viability of adtech-derived location data. With privacy regulation, platform changes, and varying predictions about the industry, it's the right question, and one worth answering directly.

How long is adtech data likely to be viable?

At Venntel, we’ve had a front-row seat to how mobile location data has changed over time, and one thing has become clear: change is constant, but change is not the same thing as disappearance.

The landscape has evolved significantly, and we expect it will continue to evolve, but the underlying ecosystem has proven far more durable than many expected.

What has changed

Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) rollout in 2021 materially reduced IDFA availability across iOS devices. Since then, the industry has also faced a steady increase in privacy regulations and enforcement activity, particularly around how sensitive location information can be collected, handled, and sold.

More recent FTC enforcement actions have largely focused on restricting the sale of sensitive-location information tied to healthcare facilities, places of worship, schools, military installations, and similar categories, particularly for commercial use cases.

At the same time, regulators have continued to preserve pathways supporting national security and law enforcement missions, while pushing providers toward stronger privacy controls, consent validation, and sensitive-location protections.

For public sector customers, data access remains intact, but with increasingly important guardrails around how the information is sourced, filtered, and operationalized.

What has not changed

For more than five years, there have been recurring predictions that this ecosystem was on the verge of collapse. That has not happened.

Instead, the industry adapts.

iOS opt-in rates recovered meaningfully after the initial ATT disruption. Android identifiers remain operational. Privacy initiatives have shifted timelines multiple times. Supply sources evolve. Collection methods adjust.

The market continuously reshapes itself rather than disappearing.

More importantly, government demand is not what sustains this ecosystem.

The commercial engine underneath it

The long-term durability of mobile location data exists because it is fundamentally a byproduct of one of the largest commercial ecosystems in the world: advertising.

Public sector customers consume data downstream from a commercial infrastructure built to support advertising, attribution, audience development, retail analytics, measurement, and broader digital marketing use cases.

That commercial machine operates at enormous scale.

Global advertising has surpassed $1 trillion in annual spend. Digital advertising represents the majority of that market. Mobile advertising continues to grow. In-app advertising alone represents hundreds of billions of dollars globally.

Those economics fund the SDK ecosystem, bidstream infrastructure, data clearinghouses, and the broader collection and distribution layers that ultimately power downstream location intelligence products.

That distinction matters.

Public sector consumption is a very small piece of what drives this ecosystem economically. Even substantial shifts in government purchasing would not materially change the commercial incentives that sustain collection and infrastructure investment.

For supply to meaningfully disappear, regulators would need to fundamentally alter the economics of digital advertising itself, not simply place controls around downstream usage or sensitive categories.

To date, regulatory activity has largely focused on improving privacy protections, tightening consent standards, and limiting misuse, not dismantling the commercial foundations supporting collection.

Our view over the next three to five years

We expect several trends to continue:

• Stronger consent requirements and sensitive-location restrictions
• Increased expectations around provenance validation and privacy controls
• Continued platform changes that reduce certain identifiers while creating alternative mechanisms for ecosystem continuity
• Greater focus on defensible sourcing, consent verification, and privacy-enhancing technologies

The question is not whether the category disappears. The question is whether providers are positioned to operate responsibly and adapt as the landscape evolves.

From our perspective, organizations investing in privacy controls, sensitive-location protections, consent validation, and stronger operational discipline will be the ones best positioned to navigate what comes next.

Schedule a meeting with us below for a deeper discussion around how our sourcing strategy, privacy controls, and operational processes have evolved alongside these changes. Please reach out with any questions or to learn more; we are always happy to support you however we can.