Head of Product and Market Technique
Alex joined Department as a Developer Advocate in 2016, and helped construct the corporate’s early developer relations and long-tail adoption methods. He works intently with groups throughout the group to assist form Department’s place within the cellular ecosystem, writes the Cellular Progress E-newsletter, and tweets often about mobile-related subjects at @alexdbauer.
Sep 14, 2022
Lately, certainly one of our fellow cellular measurement companions (MMPs) has been within the information for a unpleasant motive: on August 29, the FTC sued Kochava for promoting delicate shopper knowledge.
Extra particularly, the FTC alleges that Kochava has been promoting geolocation knowledge that “can be utilized to establish folks and hint their actions.”
At Department, we usually attempt to keep away from commenting on conditions like these. Nevertheless, the headlines for this story are alarming sufficient that quite a few our prospects have reached out to us with questions. They wish to know what this information means for Department, and what it’d imply for them.
In different phrases, prospects are asking if the info of their very own customers may additionally be on the market.
This reply may be very easy, so I wish to make sure that it’s utterly and impeccably clear: Department doesn’t promote our prospects’ person knowledge. We by no means have, and we by no means will. This has been certainly one of our core ideas going again to the start of the corporate.
However how did this example occur?
I might finish this weblog put up proper right here. However I do know a minimum of a couple of readers will wish to perceive why we’re having this dialog within the first place. The advert tech ecosystem is complicated, and we don’t at all times do an excellent job of explaining issues in a manner that is smart for folks outdoors the circle.
In Kochava’s case, the FTC lawsuit stems from a distinct line of enterprise often called the Kochava Collective. That is utterly separate from Kochava’s MMP (which offers advert attribution), and doesn’t embody any knowledge collected by their MMP product (for a full clarification, right here is the open letter from Kochava’s CEO).
Why does this matter? Maintaining buyer knowledge personal and confidential is inherent to an MMP’s existence. In reality, this can be a elementary tenet of what it means to be a cellular measurement companion: we exist to function your trusted impartial arbiter, appearing in your behalf to offer correct and unbiased advert measurement. And simply to keep away from any confusion, there is no such thing as a legitimate motive why an MMP would want entry to a person’s exact location coordinates (you may’t ship this type of geolocation knowledge to Department even in the event you needed to — we are able to’t use it, and we don’t need it).
Sadly, the excellence between Kochava’s MMP providing and the Kochava Collective is nearly universally getting misplaced within the noise.
As a model, what must you be eager about for the long run?
Tales like this one usually are not precisely new for the adtech {industry}, however the significance of person privateness has solely grown over the previous two years. This implies it can grow to be much more important for manufacturers to rigorously think about the distributors they companion with, and to know not solely the chance of the merchandise they’re utilizing, but in addition any reputational dangers referring to the distributors that they choose.
Sure, any respectable MMP will hold your person knowledge personal and confidential. That’s true by definition at present, and is unlikely to alter in future. However on this new world, the place privateness has grow to be an insanely complicated, three physique drawback and information tales about person privateness and knowledge safety can unfold like wildfire, firms have to take a look at an excellent larger image: are there different areas of reputational publicity referring to this vendor that would damage my model?
On the finish of the day, you can not succeed within the digital world with out working with companions, so it’s important to be sure to’re protecting good firm. At Department, our dedication is to be an industry-leading MMP and a companion which you could be proud to work with.
Head of Product and Market Technique
Alex joined Department as a Developer Advocate in 2016, and helped construct the corporate’s early developer relations and long-tail adoption methods. He works intently with groups throughout the group to assist form Department’s place within the cellular ecosystem, writes the Cellular Progress E-newsletter, and tweets often about mobile-related subjects at @alexdbauer.
Sep 14, 2022
