Alan Chapell, online ad privacy guru and President of Chapell & Associates, led a panel at today’s IAB Networks and Exchanges event today entitled, “Data, Transparency and Privacy.”
Among the sound bytes:
- An interesting give-and-take between Mpire’s AdXpose CRO Kirby Winfield and Yahoo! VP Ramsey McGrory regarding the verification space that echoed throughout the panel. McGrory questioned the validity of services – such as verification services – which he said, in effect, are providing transparency into ad networks’ publisher inventory when the publishers may have agreements in place with the ad networks that should mask their URLs, for example. (Cloaked inventory allows the publisher to potentially resell through ad networks and exchanges and prevent channel conflict.)
- Winfield said that his company was responding to needs in the marketplace, and is sensitive to publisher’s needs but were not a party to those ad network contracts. McGrory responded that Winfield’s response was akin to that of a gunmaker, where the gunmakers says they are not responsible for what happens with the guns they create.
- Later, the conversation turned to the business of privacy, Chapell urged “If we’re waiting for the regulatory environment to settle, we’re going to be waiting for a few years.” His point being – if you’re in the online ad business, you’re going to need deal with the hot-button, sensitivities around consumer privacy for a while.
- Yahoo’s McGrory touched a bit on how Yahoo! manages the different constituencies that are served by his company’s businesses. He said, for example, Yahoo! keeps RMX as an entirely separate business from Yahoo!’s ad network efforts as decisions need to be made from an an IO perspective and separate from the mission of the agnostic exchange. McGrory then reached out to a fellow panelist and asked him to distinguish between their technology and ad network business. Collective’s CEO Joe Apprendi responded saying they must create a chinese wall between the technology platform and ad network businesses.
- On the future of ad networks and agencies, Apprendi suggested that DSPs, ad networks and agencies are starting to look the same. Winfield concurred and added that there a number of entities in the space are requesting the same data (on CTR, impression levels, etc.) for the same campaign such as DSPs, ad networks, agencies, sell-side platforms, agency trading desk and more.
- George Pappachen, Chief Privacy Officer of WPP’s Kantar Media, stressed the innovation will continue to evolve the space and that self-regulatory efforts in the space need to continue (as opposed to governmental involvement). He added that’s it not just about online behavioral advertising (OBA), it’s about online/interactive ad targeting (as Alan Chapell said).
- McGrory said that transparency remains critical so that all the relationships and their individual contractual needs are set up properly according to rights. He said that in the case of the Right Media Exchange, Yahoo! does not want to enable a massive intermediary market.
By John Ebbert
