Data Privacy

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Chris O’Hara, vice president of strategic accounts at Krux. Almost every marketer is starting to lean into data management technology. Whether they are trying to build an in-house programmatic practice, […]

Wyndham Hotels has lost a motion to dismiss an FTC case alleging the hotel chain exposed consumer personal data to potential theft. While the case, which will be sent back to a federal trial court following Monday’s ruling by a three-judge appeals panel, doesn’t directly affect advertisers, it affirms the FTC’s power to penalize companies […]

There are myriad reasons why location data can be defective – and fraud is just one small piece of that growing problem. Growing because the lack of industry standards around the collection and use of location data leads to a fair amount of misunderstanding, unintentional discrepancies and widespread inaccuracy. “Location fraud is the easy part,” said […]

Technology is advancing so rapidly that industries have little time to update their privacy policies to comply with social norms, regulations and legislation, said Trevor Hughes, president and CEO of the International Association for Privacy Professionals (IAPP). Rapid technological development leads to what Hughes calls a public policy gap, where the leading edge of technology […]

As the ad industry girds for the mushrooming debate around privacy, consumer choice and ad blocking, it’s clear that existing opt-out mechanisms aren’t exactly cutting it, especially when it comes to cross-device. But although mobile adds another layer of complexity to the situation, online advertising is still reliant on a little .txt file called the […]

Beyond the morass of fraud and viewability hides another tripwire for advertisers: government regulation. That’s why UK-based credit card issuer Barclaycard is getting proactive about compliance. As a company that’s smaller than the competition and still making inroads in the US market, Barclaycard is particularly risk averse when it comes to regulatory issues. To that […]

In the wake of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s fighting words about data collection and a major study finding consumer sentiment toward online tracking is at an exasperated tipping point, it seems clear that privacy is having another “moment.” What’s an industry to do? Sources approached by AdExchanger sound a familiar chorus: Advertisers should increase operational […]

Krux is looking to overcome its industry perception as a publisher-focused data-management platform (DMP). This is one of the reasons why it hired Jon Suarez-Davis – previously Kellogg Co.’s VP of global media and digital strategy – as its chief marketing and strategy officer. Suarez-Davis officially starts Thursday and will report to Krux CEO Tom Chavez. “My […]

Apple’s stance on data collection: “We honestly just don’t want to know,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s SVP of software engineering, to roughly 5,000 app developers at the tech giant’s Worldwide Developer Conference on Monday. “We don’t mine your email, your photos or your contacts in the cloud to learn things,” Federighi said. “All of this is done […]

Earlier this week, Mary Engle, the Federal Trade Commission’s associate director of advertising practices, suggested to attendees at AdExchanger’s Clean Ads I/O conference that publishers could be held responsible for native ads deemed misleading that run on their properties. Read the original story by AdExchanger’s Sarah Sluis. Readers interested in her comments can now check out the above […]

Publishers taking the role of an ad agency by creating content for marketers should make sure they’re not creating misleading native advertising: The Federal Trade Commission will hold publishers responsible. “For us, the concern is whether consumers recognize what they’re seeing is advertising or not,” Mary Engle, the FTC’s associate director of advertising practices, told […]

Nestlé recently kicked off a global initiative to increase programmatic buying, but the market needed a specialized approach. Working with a local DMP and DSP, Nestlé media agency Mindshare recently kicked off a programmatic video program for its client in the region, allowing the brand to work with the big four video publishers there. “There […]

Fatemeh Khatibloo, principal analyst at Forrester, will appear at AdExchanger’s CleanAds I/O conference on June 3, an event addressing inventory quality and supply chain issues in the digital advertising ecosystem. As adland moves to clean up the supply chain and weed out fraud, the consumer perspective on data safety risks is becoming an afterthought. Fatemeh […]

Wayne Gattinella, CEO of DoubleVerify, will appear at AdExchanger’s CleanAds I/O conference on June 3, an event addressing inventory quality and supply chain issues in the digital advertising ecosystem. Because of the high demand for mobile location-based data, it’s a big opportunity for fraudsters looking to game geo-coordinates. “With more money flowing to place-based advertising, […]

On Tuesday, Gigya, a company that develops customer identity management solutions for Fortune 500 brands, rolled out IDX Marketplace, a platform anchored by 50-plus marketing and ad-tech partner integrations. Gigya claims users can activate audiences across a variety of partner tools, including data-management platforms like Krux, Adobe AudienceManager and Lotame; marketing clouds like Oracle and […]

Merkle|RKG’s Digital Marketing Report, released this week, notes strong disparities between the display ad effectiveness and cost of rivals Google and Facebook. In short, Facebook drives conversion rates, but Google is among the cheapest on a CPC basis. Though Google click growth dipped to 0.2% YoY, the Google Display Network (GDN) pulled 11% of all […]

Facebook’s introduction of a cross-device ID last fall was a big deal in marketing circles. Based on the company’s direct relationships with its 1.4 billion users, it offered a viable alternative to the broken cookie. Since then, Facebook has been on a communications and sales blitz, driving awareness and adoption of its “people-based marketing” product […]

Microsoft has reversed its approach to Do Not Track (DNT) and will no longer make it the default setting on the Internet Explorer browser and IE’s eventual replacement, Spartan. In a Good Friday blog post, Microsoft Chief Privacy Officer Brendon Lynch said the decision was made in order to comply with the World Wide Web […]

Facebook violates EU law by tracking users for targeted advertising, a European privacy panel said Tuesday. The report was commissioned by the Belgian Privacy Commission, which sits under the EU’s European Commission, and is an updated version of an initial draft that surfaced in February. A key development of the update claims that Facebook cookies […]

After Oracle bought data-management platform and exchange BlueKai last February, it essentially split the company in two. The Oracle Marketing Cloud reaped the benefits of BlueKai’s DMP while BlueKai’s Audience Data Marketplace formed the basis of the Oracle Data Cloud. Still, there’s overlap. “We have a very rich history with these two lines of business working […]

Publicis Groupe media shop ZenithOptimedia revealed Monday it’s hooking up with mobile data platform NinthDecimal to try and get a handle on offline attribution. Connecting online spend, mobile in particular, to offline purchases, is what keeps agencies up at night. It’s also what keeps advertisers from spending as much as they should on mobile, said […]

  Location data platform AdNear is going off-road with its data collection. The Singapore-based company is in the midst of completing a series of tests using drones to collect wireless data, a key ingredient in AdNear’s audience profiles. AdNear has been conducting its drone experiments in several key markets, including Los Angeles, since January. The […]

Linking up internal data assets is a great start – but while this can lead to nifty business results, it also has the potential to disrupt numerous employees and departments within a company. Brand marketers from Macy’s, Sephora and Walmart told their stories about combining customer and marketing data sets during a panel at LiveRamp’s […]

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single company in possession of a good amount of data must be in want of an onboarder. Such was the case with LiveRamp, the onboarder who recently consummated its $310 million marriage to data services giant Acxiom, resulting in last week’s birth of LiveRamp Connect. This gene […]

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 […]