There was a time, perhaps eight or nine years ago, when the industry could feasibly argue in favor of self-regulation because of the complexity of online advertising and the rapid nature of technological innovation.
But that ship has long sailed, says Jules Polonetsky, CEO of privacy-focused nonprofit the Future of Privacy Forum, speaking on this week’s episode of AdExchanger Talks.
Despite the unceasing conversation about third-party cookies (including in the pages of AdExchanger), privacy protection today is about a lot more than being followed around the internet by the proverbial banner ad for the sneakers you already bought.
“It’s about misinformation; it’s about competition. It’s about human rights and the incredible impact that personalization and technology have on our lives,” Polonetsky says. “And that needs to be settled not by companies or think tanks but by the democratic legal process.”
But the ad industry tends to get lost in its own weeds.
First-party data, third-party data, zero-party data: These terms, and the distinctions between them, are not all that important to data protection authorities and lawmakers. They care more about transparency, proportionality, purpose limitation and the balance of power between government, large companies and individual citizens.
“You need to have some legal reason for why you’re doing what you’re doing,” Polonetsky said. “There should be some minimization and fairness – these are enormously useful concepts, because they help shape society and power.”
Also in this episode: A critique of the Federal Trade Commission’s approach to privacy protection, the proliferation of state privacy laws, the over/under on when the US will finally get a national privacy law, Polonetsky’s experience as DoubleClick’s first-ever chief privacy officer between 2000 and 2020, privacy lessons from the Talmud and the somewhat unlikely connection between wine and European data protection.
For more articles featuring Jules Polonetsky, click here.
