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Digital ad industry accused of ‘world’s largest data breach’

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Widespread snooping on users in real-time alleged

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) is suing a branch of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and the broader online marketing industry, accusing it of facilitating “the world’s largest data breach.”

The New York-based IAB Tech Lab develops standards for the digital ad industry standards, and counts the likes of Facebook, Google and Amazon as members.

The case, which has been filed by ICCL’s Dr. Johnny Ryan, a former advertising industry professional turned privacy advocate, revolves around the auctioning of ad space while a webpage loads, known as real-time bidding.

“Every time we load a page on a commercial website or use an app, the website or app tells tens or hundreds of companies all about us, so that their clients can decide whether to bid on the opportunity to show you an ad,” Dr. Ryan told the BBC.

Real-time bidding

Real-time bidding refers to the buying and selling of online ad impressions through auctions conducted in the time it takes a webpage to load.

While a page loads, real-time bidding helps facilitate the sharing of various details gleaned from the device the web page is loading on, including its location, along with information about previously visited websites.

“These bid requests include inferences of your sexual orientation, religion, what you’re reading, watching, and listening to, your location,” says Dr. Ryan.

Although the advertising industry claims that the targeted individual isn’t personally identified, critics like Dr. Ryan argue that the sheer volume of information still constitutes a violation of privacy, especially since the average person isn’t aware about the amount of data that is shared about them, and with whom.

This isn’t the first time Dr. Ryan has taken action against the use of real-time bidding. He tells the BBC that he first filed the complaint with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner’s Office in May 2018, but that investigation is still continuing. He’s also lodged complaints with information commissioners in other EU countries as well.

“The amount of data advertisers have on us might shock most people but we can still still limit the amount we share and try and control further information being used,” noted Jake Moore, Cybersecurity Specialist at ESET.

“Our data is continually analysed and profited from by many technology firms but it is possible to reduce this by learning specific settings within the accounts and not sharing sensitive information that isn’t crucially required for the application to function.”

“Before we part with our personal information, our data is our responsibility but unfortunately many companies still do not fully understand how to protect our personal data online or worse still, they share such data with third parties without our direct knowledge. We must start restricting the amount of data we share with companies now to help reduce problems in the future where any company, government or third party could potentially learn every single private detail about us.”

Feature Image Credit: Pixabay

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Mayank Sharma is a technology reporter and writer from New Delhi, India.

Sourced from techradar.pro

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Digital ad industry can’t grow without proper measurement

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By Emily Tan.

If the advertising industry doesn’t find a way to measure performance accurately and consistently, Proctor & Gamble’s threat to pull spend from digital advertising will be just the tip of the iceberg, warns Kantar Media.

According to a new international study by Kantar Media examining consumer and industry attitudes to advertising, there is a lack of consistent, comparable measures to understand the audience and gauge the effectiveness of advertising.

This is a “significant concern” for those working in the industry, said the report. “Unless consistent metrics across traditional and digital channels are developed, industry growth will be put at risk.”

The report, Dimension, was based on interviews with 5,213 adults, with access to the internet, across the UK (1,035), the US (1,014), China (1,067), France (1,000) and Brazil (1,097)

The study claims to have found that brands are still unable to consistently measure the impact and effectiveness of advertising from channel to channel, and from market to market.

This risks alienating consumers are 71% of respondents said they saw the ads over and over again, finding them too repetitive. “Over-targeting on digital platforms threatens to undermine brand marketing efforts,” said the report.

 

Digital ad industry can't grow without proper measurement

According to a new international study by Kantar Media examining consumer and industry attitudes to advertising, there is a lack of consistent, comparable measures to understand the audience and gauge the effectiveness of advertising.

This is a “significant concern” for those working in the industry, said the report. “Unless consistent metrics across traditional and digital channels are developed, industry growth will be put at risk.”

The report, Dimension, was based on interviews with 5,213 adults, with access to the internet, across the UK (1,035), the US (1,014), China (1,067), France (1,000) and Brazil (1,097)

The study claims to have found that brands are still unable to consistently measure the impact and effectiveness of advertising from channel to channel, and from market to market.

This risks alienating consumers are 71% of respondents said they saw the ads over and over again, finding them too repetitive. “Over-targeting on digital platforms threatens to undermine brand marketing efforts,” said the report.

The US feels the most over-targeted, with 76% of consumers saying they see the same ads repeatedly, followed by the UK with 74%. That figure is only 58% in China.

Both the UK (49%) and the US (48%) also feel more strongly than China (33%) that they frequently see online ads that are not relevant to them.

It also found that consumers prefer advertising on TV and print than they do about online formats. In the UK, about a third of respondents actively dislike online ads, versus only 13% on newspapers. The US shows similar figures and while China is less strong in its dislike of online ads (averaging around 20%), only 9% dislike newspaper ads.

“It’s a collective challenge for our industry: unless we work together to solve this problem, the growth of the sector will be hindered,” Andy Brown, chief executive and chairman of Kantar Media said. “So long as standards differ between markets and across media forms no one wins. Brands can’t track spend, agencies can’t deliver the best solutions for their clients, and consumers’ openness to marketing will diminish if the channels used to reach them are not used intelligently.”

Despite the negative headlines though, 68% of respondents either like or tolerate advertising, while 73% of consumers think advertisers are doing a better job of reaching them now than in the past.

However, these high numbers are swayed by strong results from China where 87% of consumers feel current advertising is outperforming that of the past. In the UK and US that figure is only 59% respectively.

By Emily Tan.

Sourced from campaign

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