Note that "Google, Amazon, Microsoft, TikTok, and hundreds of other tracking-based online advertising companies rely on IAB Europe’s consent system, which Europe’s data protection authorities have already found to be in violation of the GDPR following our complaint."

I think it’s more of IAB being the gatekeeper than MS et al striking such deals voluntarily.

If you are an online newspaper running ads in EU, you can’t so much as sneeze without IAB’s blessing. They are everywhere.

> Massive win for Google, Apple, Facebook.

Yes, that is true and under appreciated

> Really hard to see a future for third party ad networks

For now, what are biggest programmatic exchanges still going? I have been out of the loop for a while

You’re replying to a comment as if it’s suggesting ad networks are good. It’s not. It’s just stating, rightly in my opinion, that this is a huge win for those giant tech companies.

Note that Google, Amazon, Microsoft and others are also involved in this ruling:

  Google, Amazon, Microsoft, TikTok, and hundreds of other tracking-based online 
  advertising companies rely on IAB Europe’s consent system, which Europe’s data 
  protection authorities have already found to be in violation of the GDPR 
  following our complaint.

Google and Facebook are desperately telling credulous idiots to sent them hashed personal data as if that’s not still a massive GDPR risk.