Data Privacy

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 […]

It’s been over a year since ad tech and video ad distribution company DG acquired semantic data provider Peer39 and folded it into DG’s MediaMind online division. During that time, Peer39-er Alex White has had a front row seat to his company’s integration into DG with his new role as GM of DG’s Data and Trading operations. […]

The Tracking Protection Working Group is meeting this week in Sunnyvale, Calif. in its latest attempt to create a tech spec for the Do Not Track browser feature. Progress has been excruciatingly slow for the group, which operates under the aegis of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Disparate interests have been unable to agree on even […]

With Krux’s initial conception of its publisher data management platform (DMP) nearly complete, CEO Tom Chavez is thinking about what’s next for his 2.5-year-old company.  Chavez says, “We had a broad idea of all the pieces that we wanted to conquer, and within the last year, those puzzle pieces have come together. It spans not […]

Location analytics company Placed is now offering a ranking system for brick-and-mortar retailers, restaurants and other destinations, based on data from its Placed Panels and Placed Affiliate programs. In March 2013, McDonald’s was the top US business based on the number of visitors, while Applebee’s and Sonic Drive-In both saw increases in their rankings compared […]

In the past few years, Bizo CEO Russ Glass says that marketers have gotten smarter about using online data for targeting – and that’s a good thing, since his company’s success revolves around B2B audience segments gleaned from data partnerships with publishers. It’s less about “evangelizing the value of data,” says Glass, as the marketer […]

With a PhD. in econometrics and an analytics and statistical background on the AdAdvisor side of the Neustar “house,” VP of Research & Analytics Ken Inman has good reason to be laser-focused on building consumer predictive models. Inman oversees the development of targeted marketing applications, using data and information to help address challenges in customer […]

The Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) will make a formal case this week that Do Not Track should be set to “off” by default. Members of the group charged with creating the DNT browser spec heard details of the ad industry’s proposal during a Monday call meant to prepare for next week’s face-to-face meeting in Sunnyvale, […]

Using customer data to personalize or optimize individuals’ website experiences can increase conversion and customer satisfaction, yet a majority of digital marketing professionals do not prioritize it, according to two recent studies from Adobe and Econsultancy. As marketers leverage more digital tools, turning to real-time behavioral and existing customer data helps segment website visitors and […]

In a hearing held by the Senate Commerce Committee, Chairman John “Jay” Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) accused the ad industry of dragging its feet on the creation of specs for a Do Not Track browser option. “A commitment was made to honor Do Not Track requests from consumers that has not yet been followed through,” Rockefeller said […]

It’s been almost a year since Microsoft first pledged to default-enable Do Not Track in Internet Explorer 10, setting off an urgent debate about the future of third-party ad tracking which continues to this day. The company has endured attacks both withering (“paternalistic,” said Evidon) and mild (“absolutely not helpful,” offered IAB CEO Randall Rothenberg), […]