Data Privacy

In perhaps the biggest challenge yet to the legitimacy of the Do Not Track standard-making process, the Digital Advertising Alliance is giving up on efforts to build consensus for a browser-based DNT solution for Internet users. The self-regulatory group will also begin its own efforts to initiate a browser-based tracking choice mechanism for Internet users, […]

A few days after Acxiom unveiled Aboutthedata.com, a website where people can review the (sometimes inaccurate) online data that the marketing firm has collected about them, Pew Internet has published a report suggesting internet users are trying to remain anonymous online. Out of a survey of 792 online users in the US, 86% of the […]

After announcing that he had been appointed to an intelligence review panel, Peter Swire, co-chair of the Tracking Protection Working Group (TPWG), which is tasked with creating a universal standard for the “Do Not Track” browser feature, has resigned from the TPWG. A seasoned negotiator, Swire was brought in last November to salvage the DNT […]

Location data is often touted as the key to unlocking the targeting opportunities in mobile ads. How to best leverage location data varies by company, however. For JiWire—a 10-year-old firm that started out as a Wi-Fi hotspot provider—the answer lies in layering data over customized audience segments. AdExchanger talked to JiWire President David Staas. AdExchanger: […]

As the mobile ad market grows, so do the stakes for providing contextually relevant ads. Geo-targeted ads on mobile devices are getting a boost from companies like Google, Foursquare and Twitter, which are in various stages of rolling out new ad units that leverage location data. In a blog post yesterday, Google announced ads will […]

Based on a survey of more than 5,000 people in Canada, France, Germany, the UK and the US, Forrester Research predicts 905 million people, up from 15 million in 2010, will be using tablets by 2017. Tablets, write Forrester analysts JP Gownder and Michael O’Grady, have “exceeded the status of mass market to become what […]

Since LinkedIn launched its heavily dissected LinkedIn Endorsements product last September, two billion endorsements have been made to date. LinkedIn, which reported 37% year-over-year growth in membership in Q2, now has 238 million members and generated $364 million in revenue in the second quarter. The company is also flirting with an API to enable programmatic […]

Little Rock, AR-based Acxiom is gearing up to launch an “Audience Operating System,” for cross-channel and cross-device ad targeting, in September. “The world is coming to us as big data and insight-based decisioning is exactly what we do,” CEO Scott Howe said during the company’s earnings call. “It is also exactly our vision for the […]

Jonathan Mayer, a Stanford graduate student who has been a highly vocal advocate for consumer privacy, has resigned from the Tracking Protection Working Group, which is charged with setting the browser spec for a “Do Not Track” mechanism. In an email delivered yesterday afternoon to members of the Working Group, Mayer writes, “We do not […]

As more marketers use data to deploy targeted offers, clear differences are emerging in how industry verticals embrace digital strategies, a study has found. Digital technology company Lyris and the Economist Intelligence Unit found in “The Digital Marketing Gap” that some of the most widely growing areas of strategic importance to marketers include: content to guide product research, the […]

The Digital Advertising Alliance’s managing director, Lou Mastria, reacted to the Tracking Protection Working Group’s decision to reject the DAA’s draft proposal for a universal Do Not Track standard, calling it “unfortunate” and “adding more pressure” to meet the group’s upcoming deadline. “I think we proposed something that was workable and did a lot to […]

As mobile usage grows, so do demands for location-based ads. Helping advertisers optimize their location data has become a highly lucrative space, finds Gil Elbaz, founder of Applied Semantics (which turned into Google’s AdSense) and the startup Factual. AdExchanger talked to Elbaz about the growth of location-based ads and Factual’s latest products, Geopulse Audience and […]

Two weeks after unveiling the “Cookie Clearinghouse,” a joint project between Mozilla and the Stanford Center for Internet and Society that would determine which websites are allowed to set cookies, Mozilla execs and CIS director of privacy Aleecia McDonald shed more light on the project today at a public discussion. “This initiative is about creating […]

As the debate over the intersection of consumer privacy and online advertising rages, a recent announcement that browser maker Mozilla would work with Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society to create a “cookie clearinghouse” appears to have poured more fuel on the fire. Debuted by Mozilla CTO Brendan Eich’s blog on June 19, and then reiterated in […]

The Federal Trade Commission has officially updated Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) with new restrictions that go into effect today. The changes include a ban on collecting location data from site owners and app developers with properties aimed at children. Since 2000, COPPA has required website operators whose sites are directed at users younger […]

Demandbase used to focus exclusively on optimizing website content based on the company an inbound visitor works for. As we noted late last year, it has expanded to push that IP-based business data into RTB buys. In an update on the business, CEO Chris Golec tells AdExchanger about 25% of customers have used the new […]

Disagreements continue between the advertising industry and privacy advocates as advertisers point to potential weaknesses in the “Cookie Clearinghouse” project that Mozilla, maker of the Firefox browser, and the Stanford Center for Internet and Society’s have unveiled. The Cookie Clearinghouse promises to create two lists of domains: one for those that browsers would permit to […]

As the fallout from the news that that the National Security Agency has amassed a vast collection of phone and Internet activity records continues, AdExchanger asked several marketing and privacy experts for their thoughts on the impact that the NSA’s data collection program may have on perceptions of consumer data used for advertising purposes. Click […]

A few members of the group charged with creating the spec for a browser-based Do Not Track function have signaled their displeasure with the process by supporting a “contingency plan” that would effectively end the two years of talks without an outcome. But it’s far from clear whether they can find consensus to push that […]

Mobile advertising and the need to further educate consumers about its services were key issues at the Digital Advertising Alliance’s first summit, held this week in Washington, DC. The DAA has planned to introduce a set of mobile advertising guidelines for several months and will do so soon, according to Managing Director Lou Mastria. “Mobile […]

Twitter has shown aggressiveness over the past few months in developing its advertising business, and this morning’s global data-sharing deal with WPP Group represents another significant advancement. Read the release. The relationship is through WPP’s Data Alliance, which includes the holding company’s media buying and planning umbrella GroupM, the analytics provider Kantar and digital creative […]

Worldwide advertising revenue for Amazon will reach more than $800 million in 2013, as the company leverages its rich customer data and deals with the challenges of mobile advertising, according to a new forecast from eMarketer. “We’ve been looking at Amazon as a business for a while now, and at this point we felt there […]

Chegg.com launched in 2007 as a website for college students to buy and sell used textbooks. In the past couple of years, Chegg has evolved into a community platform with a range of data on an elusive market: high school and college students. Elizabeth Harz, Chegg’s VP of business development, says, “There are a number […]

Email and search continue to drive the most referrals to ecommerce sites, according to Q1 2013 data from website optimization company Monetate. But word-of-mouth through social media does influence purchases, despite a lack of last-click attribution for the channel. After analyzing more than 500 million online shopping experiences, the Ecommerce Quarterly report found conversion rates […]

Mozilla, maker of the Firefox web browser, must fix three areas within its third-party-cookie-blocking patch before it can be rolled out to users, according to Stanford graduate student Jonathan Mayer, who developed the patch. The problematic areas involve “underblocking,” i.e. inadvertently allowing unwanted tracking cookies past Firefox’s cookie blocking patch, Mayer explained in a blog […]

The balance between protecting consumers’ privacy and reaching them with relevant targeted ads is a constant struggle for the online ad industry. And consumers experience a similar tension, according to several surveys published in recent months. After a December 2012 survey of 2,000 customers in the US and UK, Accenture Interactive found that 86% of respondents […]

Mozilla has postponed activating the third-party blocking feature on its latest browser, Firefox 22, according to an update on its developer page.  The blocking feature has been postponed “to collect data on the effect of blocking some third-party cookies,” according to the blog post. A Mozilla spokesperson provided the following statement: “Mozilla has been actively […]

David Bell, the chairman emeritus for Interpublic Group, offered his take on some barriers to growth in digital advertising today at Aol’s Thought Leadership Summit on programmatic advertising. Number one on his hit list was the clutter of ad tech startups. He also took aim at the power wielded by procurement officers and bashed the ad industry for […]

Cross-device ad targeting provider Drawbridge will use data segments from eXelate, the companies said today. When it comes to delivering targeted ads on mobile devices, the process is more complicated than it is on a desktop PC, largely because of the inability to use cookies on a smartphone or tablet. Drawbridge gets around this challenge […]

Last month, BlueKai signed a deal to build a data management platform for MLB Advanced Media, the interactive business division of Major League Baseball, designed to connect the company’s 30 team websites for advertisers. MLBAM was the fifth publisher BlueKai has added to its client list this year. CEO Omar Tawakol tells AdExchanger that while […]