During Oracle’s earnings call for the quarter ending March 31, the software giant announced that it would be shutting down its advertising business. CEO Safra Catz shared that the revenue for the advertising business had declined to $300 million in the fiscal year ’24. This decision marked the end of Oracle’s foray into the advertising industry.
Oracle’s venture into advertising began with acquisitions of ad technology companies over a decade, totaling in the billions. Notable acquisitions included DataLogix in 2014 and Moat in 2017, each costing hundreds of millions of dollars. However, Oracle’s advertising business took a hit when Meta (then known as Facebook) cut off data to third parties, including Oracle, in 2018. This move limited Oracle’s ability to provide valuable insights to its clients.
Additionally, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe further restricted Oracle’s business. The company had to cease offering third-party data targeting services in Europe in 2020, impacting many of its data products in the region. As a result, Oracle had to shut down its publisher audience tool in Europe, such as NowThis, in 2019. Last year, Oracle completely ended the NowThis project due to these privacy issues, leading to class action lawsuits over user privacy concerns surrounding the company. These challenges ultimately led Oracle to make the decision to exit the advertising business.