Rethinking Curation: How Publishers and Agencies Can Reclaim the Open Web

The deprecation of third-party cookies and rise of privacy regulations have reshaped digital advertising—and publishers are feeling the pressure. While curation was once hailed as a fix, its first wave prioritized intermediaries over true innovation. Today, a new model is emerging: one that puts publishers back in control and redefines how agencies access high-quality, trusted supply.

In this episode of First-Party Pod, Gloria and Rio sit down with Joe Root, CEO and co-founder of Permutive, to unpack the evolution from Curation 1.0 to 2.0—and what it means for publishers, agencies, and the open web. They explore how legacy data arbitrage models gave rise to opaque, unsustainable practices, and why the next wave of curation must be powered by publisher-owned signals and agency-led deal construction.

They also dive into the promise of probabilistic clean rooms, the shifting economics of deal-based media buying, and why deterministic identity is holding the open internet back. Joe shares how Permutive is enabling real-time, privacy-safe activation of publisher data, why AI is transforming campaign optimization, and how clean room and curation innovations can finally deliver scalable, addressable advertising.

Plus, they discuss how publishers are monetizing previously unbiddable signals, how agencies can regain control of media quality, and why the future of ad tech will be won on trust, speed, and collaboration.