Data - It's all out there, you just need to know where to look

Something that has been on my mind lately is how insecure advertiser and consumer data really is on the Web. Trust doesn't seem to exist in the online world and for good reason. Data is completely portable for those that know how to get it.

It is too bad that most agencies and publishers have know idea how the technology works or are too busy to pay attention to what information is being provided in every ad transaction and worse yet made completely available via that login being passed from agency to publisher.

As an industry we have become completely reliant on vendors of all shapes and sizes to help us become more efficient, most notably the third party ad server (both standard and rich media). Agencies using these vendors are not only in the creative and media planning business but they are also now in the business of sharing confidential information. Agency trafficking teams are so overworked that they frequently reuse or mistakenly send incorrect login info to publishers violating their confidentiality. Publishers frequently gain access to delivery data of other publishers thinking that it is specific to the campaign they are running with the agency. Now most publisher ad operations folks understand this and take the high road with the information, quickly deleting the email and requesting the correct access to their reports.

But worse yet is that because of our fast pace and limited resources actual IOs, the contracts by which advertising is bought and sold, are frequently sent to the wrong publishers. This is appalling and completely unacceptable! Agencies need to be held accountable for this and publishers better be aware that data is portable and you never know how or when it will get shared.

Interesting read on impact of third party cookies

Check out the latest post at Ad Market News

New blog

Last week I decided to launch a new web site AD Market News as a place to speak about ad industry issues and aggregate the most important topics and company news relating to our space. It will be fun to see it develop and get feedback from the market on what's important to keep us moving forward.