Evidon And DoubleVerify Partner; Rubicon Project Pours On Mobile; OpenX Does, Too - In Japan

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Evidon, DoubleVerify Partner

Just in time to provide compliance with the EU ePrivacy Directive and U.S. Self Regulatory Program, DoubleVerify has agreed to integrate Evidon’s privacy solution into its measurement platform. About a year ago, DoubleVerify was an Evidon competitor when it came to providing the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) Advertising Option icon. But steadily ad verifier DoubleVerify has moved toward measurement, while Evidon has become a leader in the privacy compliance solutions space. From the release, “DoubleVerify’s integrated measurement platform allows for the companies’ clients globally to gain the benefits of both the DoubleVerify measurement technology and Evidon’s InForm platform for In-Ad Notice as a fully integrated, single tag solution.” Read more.

Adding Mobile

Rubicon Project announced the acquisition of mobile ad platform Mobsmith. According to Rubicon, mobile display ad inventory is now available. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed but the release states, “The combined solution will offer a direct and programmatic mobile ad platform and Real Time Trading marketplace for comScore 500 inventory.” Read more. Competitors Admeld and PubMatic also have mobile offerings let alone the exchanges. The sell-side platform – and the exchange – are stretching to go cross-channel.

Japanese Mobile Display

OpenX is extending its Japanese tour. Its RTB exchange in the country, offered in partnership with Dentsu-owned media rep Cyber Communications, now includes mobile RTB ads afer initially announcing its partnership a year ago. Says the new release, “As part of the newly expanded exchange, cci will supply mobile inventory, including both smartphone and tablet inventory, from online publishers. Advertising agencies and Demand Side Platforms, which cci and OpenX will jointly supply, will then be able to purchase the stock of the mobile inventory.”

Cross-Platforming

Lotame tells MediaPost’s Laurie Sullivan that it’s launching new cross-platform targeting tools as the company’s Crowd Control data management platform (DMP) morphs into its next iteration. Sullivan explains the cross-platform angle, “Aside from managing mobile Web data, the platform integrates discrete audience-based data from a variety of first- and third-party sources, such as mobile apps, behavioral and demographic data, Web analytic tools, CRM data, point-of-sale data and other offline data sources.” Read more.

Retailers Heart Mobile

Forrester and Shop.org have combined efforts to produce a new report on mobile ad strategy among retailers and found that the leading, “mobile-related tools” in use today are: “Mobile display ads, 41%; Tablet paid search campaigns, 39%; Other location-based marketing, 27%; Check-in campaigns, 25%; SMS, 23%; Tablet display ad campaigns, 20%; Identifying device IDs, 18%.” Read more warm mobile fuzzies.

Is Aggregate Data Anonymous? Not Always

Writing on the FTC’s tech blog, chief technologist Ed Felton makes the case that aggregate data can pose a privacy threat. His key example is collaborative filtering systems, which recommend items based on past queries and purchase behavior within a population of users (Think: Amazon, Netflix). Felton explains, “If a system tells you that people who watch the TV show ‘Alf’ also watch ‘Dallas,’ this fact is aggregate information–essentially a correlation that is calculated across the entire user population. But given enough of this aggregate data, over time, it can become possible (depending on the details of the system) to infer what individual users have purchased and watched.” It calls to mind AOL’s disastrous public release in 2006 of “anonymous” search queries, which led the New York Times to track down searcher #4417749,” one Thelma Arnold, a 62 year old widow living in Lilburn, Georgia. Read more.

New Acronym

Upstream Group’s Doug Weaver follows up his declaration of war on acronyms and over-used ad tech phraseology with his own approved ad tech lexicon. He begins his latest missive meant to counsel the digital ad seller: “…one common question I’ve heard a dozen times this week is, ‘So now that you’ve eliminated 90% of the key words we use in our presentations, what are we supposedto sell?’ Simply put, start selling the Three Cs: Clarity, Certainty and Control.” CCC! Read it.

But Wait. There’s More!