Spotify, Learning From Google’s Domination of Every Part of the Data and Advertising Pipeline, Acquires Megaphone ⇥ theverge.com

Ashley Carman, the Verge:

Yesterday, the company announced it spent $235 million to acquire Megaphone, a podcast hosting company that also inserts and sells dynamic ads for podcasts. The acquisition, though large, isn’t as flashy as some of the company’s other deals, but it sets Spotify up to become a force in podcast ad sales. With Megaphone, Spotify wants to dominate podcast advertising and become the main ad seller for shows both inside and outside its network. This could have repercussions, not just for where and how advertisers and podcast networks spend money, but also for how much Spotify knows about listener behavior both inside and outside its platform.

One reason Google was able to grow to dominate web advertising is because it acquired companies at every stage of the online advertising pipe. Spotify is echoing that for podcasts. This is going to get a lot worse for privacy and listener choice before it has any hope of getting better.