Data Privacy

It’s a mobile world and Rocket Fuel wants a piece of it. The ad network, known historically as a desktop display player, announced Tuesday the launch of Local Lift, a tool that purports to drive in-store foot traffic and measure the results by connecting mobile clicks to store visits. Although this isn’t Rocket Fuel’s first […]

Verizon’s zombie cookie is now killable. In a development initially reported by The New York Times, the telco will allow its users to opt out from what the privacy community and a censorious media referred to as a “zombie cookie.” Previously, there was no way to opt out of Verizon’s persistent tracking mechanism. Users could opt out of having […]

As the Internet of Things ramps up, the Federal Trade Commission isn’t far behind. In a report issued Tuesday, the FTC set out a series of privacy recommendations leveled at the IoT device-making community, including best practices on data collection, usage and storage. [Download the report.] Regulators and agencies are most concerned about the ubiquitous […]

Targeted ads are here to stay. But so is a consumer’s right to privacy. “The FTC recognizes that targeted advertising benefits consumers,” said the FTC’s director for the Bureau of Consumer Protection, Jessica Rich, at AdExchanger’s Industry Preview on Wednesday. “The business model clearly benefits consumers and we have no interest in jeopardizing it.” While […]

WBEZ’s “This American Life” spinoff, “Serial,” shattered the iTunes record for the fastest podcast to reach 5 million downloads. From its October premiere through Jan. 1, the episodes were downloaded 31 million times. But for “Serial,” the sleeper winner was email marketing solutions provider MailChimp, the podcast’s sponsor whose brand went viral thanks to the […]

Data is a bit like a little black dress – it goes with everything. That’s especially true for women’s apparel brand Cache, which maintains an active ecommerce site and more than 230 brick-and-mortar stores in malls across the US. The data collection potential is huge. “In-store transactional data, online behavior, CRM data, offline purchases down […]

In December, JUICE Mobile spun off its beacon network into a standalone ad tech company called Freckle IoT. Already the largest beacon network in the Canada marketplace, the company describes itself as “a testing ground for the activation of next-generation connected devices.” The Toronto-based firm’s goal is to build a platform capable of talking to […]

Programmatic has been gaining steam in the Asia-Pacific region, but the industry still lacks awareness and understanding, according to a new study from Singapore-based MediaQuark. Of the 108 respondents to the company’s survey, 62% said that a lack of industry understanding was one of the biggest challenges for programmatic in the APAC market. Looking at […]

Target. eBay. The Home Depot. Neiman Marcus. Michaels Stores. Sony Pictures Entertainment. Even Chick-fil-A. Data breaches, hacks and questionable cybersecurity became par for the course in 2014, removing the illusion that companies can easily protect themselves or their customers. According to Pew Research, 91% of consumers aren’t comfortable about how companies collect and use their personal […]

Adobe’s having a good couple of months. Following Forrester’s high ranking of Adobe’s enterprise marketing suite last month, the software company unveiled a series of mobile enhancements to the Adobe Marketing Cloud on Tuesday. Adobe customers can now tap into in-app messaging capabilities and send personalized follow-up emails and other messages based on a consumer’s […]

Healthcare and advertising is a complex pairing because of a variety of regulations around consumer targeting. While the sector has been slow to adopt programmatic, Publicis’ health arm, Publicis Health Media (PHM), is diving into automation with its programmatic platform AOD Health, released in October though a partnership with VivaKi, though the company declined to […]

KBM Group might be the data services unit of WPP agency Wunderman, but don’t think of it as just a database manager. “Our job is to provide strategic leadership, not simply be a database vendor when clients need one,” said William Burkart, who became KBM Group’s president and COO in late September. So if you […]

In recent quarters, Acxiom’s financial narrative has focused on its struggle to redefine itself. Whereas Acxiom was once – and still is – known as a provider of data for marketers, it’s seeking to become a neutral provider of data infrastructure via its Audience Operating System (AOS) platform and LiveRamp, the data onboarder it acquired in July. This […]

Here’s a potential new acronym for you: MOOH – that’s to say, mobile out-of-home. Digital OOH programmatic player Vistar Media launched an extension of its cross-screen offering Wednesday via a partnership with AirSage, a little-known Atlanta-based company that collects data on consumer location and population movement. AirSage captures and analyzes in the neighborhood of 15 […]

A change is on the horizon for Annalect, Omnicom’s analytics and marketing technology arm. Omnicom agencies – both its media traders and its creative firms – use Annalect when they need data-driven expertise for their clients’ campaigns. As such, Annalect has a wealth of data scientists and technologists, 250 relationships with third-party data sources and a […]

Because AARP serves a specific demographic – people over 50 – the magazine has long understood just how valuable it was to provide advertisers with a segmented audience. But within that age bracket, there is incredible diversity of segments that the AARP knew would provide value to advertisers. So the team decided to use Krux to […]

Cross-device is hot (hey there, Atlas), and now data-management platform Lotame has tossed its hat into the ring with a feature built from AdMobius’ technology, a company Lotame acquired earlier this year. The feature, announced Wednesday, uses a combination of deterministic and probabilistic algorithms to create device matches and cross-screen audience segments within Lotame’s DMP. […]

In the two years since GPS solutions provider Telenav acquired hyperlocal ad platform Thinknear, there’s been minimal technology integration between the two companies. But that’s all part of the strategic plan, Telenav vet Loren Hillberg told AdExchanger. Hillberg, who most recently served as VP and general counsel at Telenav, a public company, announced Tuesday that […]

Germany is leading the attack in the EU’s deepening privacy war against Google. Late last Tuesday, a legal ruling levied by Hamburg data protection commissioner Johannes Caspar required that Google obtain Germans’ expressed permission in order to access their data, or face $1.27 million in fines. “Our requirements aim at a fair balance between the […]

Facebook’s Atlas ad server allows advertisers to target Facebook users not just on Facebook.com, but across the web and app ecosystem. Once a user has logged into Facebook on a device, Atlas can find the user and serve ads just for that person. When he or she acts on the ad, Atlas ties that back to […]

While marketing clouds push the promise of technological integration, the fact that every major cloud was built through acquisition means it’s fair to question the extent to which the components are truly unified. Getting applications within a cloud to communicate is ultimately an iterative process and Oracle, on Tuesday, unveiled its latest development within its […]

Sift Media, publisher of such websites as Accountingweb.co.uk and HRZone.co.uk, wanted to use data to create better experiences for the reader and better results for its advertisers. It found its technology match in Cxense, which offers audience data management and analytics geared to the publisher. “It was the first solution [we came across] that came […]

Experian Marketing Services introduced a persistent identification service into its Marketing Suite product line on Wednesday. The OmniView service is designed to combine marketer-owned login identities into a single, core identifier. It combines the company’s various linkage solutions (i.e., connecting email addresses with in-store shoppers) and also includes data cleansing and the ability to strengthen first-party data […]

When it comes to data collection, Apple is on the offensive… and, perhaps, the defensive. There’s no need to read between the lines of Tim Cook’s attack on the data monetizers of the world. As the Apple CEO stated in an open letter posted on Apple’s website Wednesday night: “We don’t build a profile based […]

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) wants to know what marketers are doing with segmentation profiles like “urban scrambler” and “ethnic second city struggler.” The potential for advertising segmentation to exacerbate inequality was a central topic at Monday’s FTC workshop, “Big Data: A Tool for Inclusion or Exclusion?” The Washington, D.C., event included representatives from advocacy groups […]

Data juggernaut Alliance Data Systems (ADS) might keep a relatively low profile, but the multibillion-dollar company has its fingers in quite a few data pies. What it needs now is to connect the dots. And as ADS’ recently announced $2.3 billion acquisition of ad tech company Conversant (née ValueClick/Dotomi) for subsidiary Epsilon denotes, that’s exactly […]

Considering Apple’s user-centric ethos, there’s a slim chance the watch’s tiny screen will ever be host to advertising in the traditional sense. It’s a move that would be “antithetical to the whole way that Apple works,” said Mark Yackanich, CEO of ad company Genesis Media.  “The question to ask ourselves is not a media-specific question, […]

“Marketer’s Note” is a regular column informing marketers about the rapidly evolving, digital marketing technology ecosystem. This week it is written by Lizzie Komar, Associate Analyst, AdExchanger Research.   I am thrilled to announce that AdExchanger Research’s report, “Define PII Today to Prepare for the Privacy Demands of the Future,” is available for purchase on our site, as of Wednesday. […]

“The Sell Sider” is a column written by the sell side of the digital media community. Receive The Sell Sider in your inbox twice a week by signing up for the email here, and selecting The Publisher Newsletter.  Today’s column is written by Alex Linde, senior vice president of monetization at The Weather Company. Mobile can sometimes […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here. Media = Infrastructure In a think piece on Amazon’s Twitch acquisition, NYT media columnist David Carr writes, “Gaming is a bandwidth hog, and Twitch is able to host multiplayer games, large events and commentary because the company invested in at least 15 data centers jammed […]