BlueKai Launches White-Label Registry To Promote Data Collection Transparency Says CEO Tawakol

BlueKai announced the roll-out of a white-label version of its consumer data registry that may be used by publishers as “an out-of-the-box solution for supporting transparent consumer data collection.” Read the release.

BlueKai CEO Omar Tawakol discussed the white-label registry.

AdExchanger.com: Why is white-label important as opposed to a branded offering?

OT: Many sites do not want a customer to confuse data collected by them with data that may have been collected elsewhere. The white label registry is a solution made for publishers and marketers to communicate site-specific data collection to their visitors. The white label registry is complimentary to the BlueKai Registry. In fact, we encourage our clients who adopt the white label registry to link to the BlueKai Registry, which provides a comprehensive view of web preferences across all BlueKai partner sites who contribute sell-able data to the BlueKai Exchange.

The other reason to provide a white label solution (as opposed to a BlueKai branded solution) is that BlueKai is a B2B company that doesn’t have a consumer brand. Our partners, however, are some of the strongest consumer brands on the Internet. It makes much more sense for the registry to be surfaced by the publishers with strong brands at the point of data collection.

How does this fit with self-regulation efforts such as those proposed by the National Advertising Review Council and the platform monitoring services offered by Better advertising among others?

This is complimentary to that. Our goal as an industry should be to provide choices and options to the marketers and publishers so that every page that collects data and every ad that uses data would link to some transparency tool. We don’t care which solution is adopted (BlueKai doesn’t generate revenue from the Registry). We only care that transparency tools are widely adopted.

How close do you think the digital advertising industry is to draconian regulation as it relates to consumer privacy?

As an industry, we have a chance to step up to the plate, to strategize and execute on data disclosure and collection that consumers understand, and can control. Government involvement can provide a false sense of protection to the consumer. If you think about today’s privacy policies, it’s the result of instilling laws to protect the consumer, but the solution is not consumer-friendly at all – the details are hidden in pages and pages of legalese that the average person does not take the time to read. I hope the industry seizes the opportunity to self-regulate in the next couple of years so that Washington is not forced to step in with regulations that may not end up serving the consumers.

By John Ebbert

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