Was GDPR ever going to be a one day news story? No, of course not; it’s here to stay, and the impact of North American-based brands has already been felt, with predictable lawsuits filed against some of the big players in the online data space, and brands pulling down their European websites. Here’s are some other nuggets:
- The Washington Post didn’t darken its digital European presence. Oh no. Instead it put up a paywall for E.U. visitors, charging a $90 premium annual EU subscription for a website with no ads — and no data collection. That’s $30 more than the cost of a regular online subscription. It’s an ill wind
- Down to the nitty gritty with ICANN, the nonprofit custodian of the infrastructure of the Internet, filing a suit against a Germany-based domain registrar aimed at forcing it to continue collecting the personal data of individuals who buy web addresses, something the registrar argues contravenes GDPR. The information underpins ICANN’s WHOIS look-up service, and the litigation is likely the first shot in an extensive battle to ensure a continuing flow of information on domain owners
- Google had some good news to balance the launch of privacy lawsuits: In the days running up to GDPR, European advertisers were seen to shift significant ad budget to Google, trusting its DoubleClick Bid Manager system to be in compliance with GDPR. Google is not only the biggest player in online advertising; GDPR has also allowed it to act the part of gatekeeper, by withholding “verification” of GDPR compliance from third party companies. AppNexus, for example, saw spending on its services begin to flow again after Google verified its compliance with GDPR.
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In other news, identity resolution and data onboarding service LiveRamp announced a move designed to advance ethical treament of third party data. Programmatic human survey platform Lucid is partnering with LiveRamp to permit validation of LiveRamp data through comparisons with Lucid’s vast trove of information collected by surveying actual human beings (billions of responses from hundreds of millions of users). The result is a Lucid Data Score, helping marketers to make more informed data purchase decisions. Expect to see a lot of effort at the respectable end of the data industry aimed at improving the reputation of third party data. In a press release, Luke McGuinness, GM of Data Store at LiveRamp, said “By encouraging and supporting greater clarity and accuracy across data sets, we aim to elevate ethical data, enabling marketers to deliver the most relevant and efficient advertising experiences to consumers.”
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Finally, where in the world is DMN? Right now, at home in muggy New York City, but next week we’ll be bringing you coverage of PegaWorld 2018, reporting on whether Pega CEO has anything nice to say about Salesforce this year. Place your bets now.
