IAB, 4A’s Set Down Rules For Use And Ownership Of User Data
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After nearly eight years, the online ad industry’s terms and conditions—or “T&C’s”—have been revised and the issue of who owns user data for marketing purposes appears to be settled. Under the joint 3.0 Standards (PDF) from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the 4A’s, ownership of “user volunteered data” gleaned by media companies for marketing purposes belongs to the advertiser. As stated in Section XII of the document: “All User Volunteered Data is the property of Advertiser, is subject to the Advertiser’s posted privacy policy, and is considered Confidential Information of Advertiser.” Still, the standards do try to provide some balance to publishers and media agencies. For example, unless a publisher gives the okay, marketers cannot reuse the data or share details about a publishers’ site with third parties.
SEE ALSO: Guest Contributor: Greg Stuart, Ex IAB Head, On GroupM’s Decision To Ignore Ad Industry’s Standards
Update: I spoke with Sean Kegelman, SVP, Partnerships at VivaKi, who worked on the new contract model. He outlined the the kind of user data that is collected and added how the new rules are meant to satisfy privacy concerns, while also respecting the responsibilities and rights of the agencies, advertisers and publishers in the online media buying mix. Separately, he noted that the goal was to update old processes of handling insertion orders—even in the digital age, most ads are bought and sold via fax and phone. The public comment period is now open for members of both organs to vote on the proposed contract guidelines. The process is expected to be completed early next year.
Kegelman: “This is not about publishers being concerned about advertisers stealing their audiences. The user-collected data is very specific to explicit information that put in by a user that the publisher is facilitating the collection of in the context of an ad. For example, with a banner unit, we might collect an e-mail address or a name. A lot of that is hosted by the advertiser. Or if there’s a sponsorship and people are signing up and its driven by an advertiser, then any of the data collected from that is the advertiser’s information. We’re specifically avoiding the word “property” just because it brings up a lot of privacy issues regarding the ownership of information. It’s more about the usage rights and confidentiality.”
He also wanted to emphasize that advertisers cannot take user data—which essentially refers to data that users submit directly to a sponsor in the form of an e-mail ior a name—and use it for retargeting. “Knowing that we exposed an ad to a given person on a site like ESPN (NYSE: DIS), we can’t take that information and use it to retarget someone else on ESPN or even within the larger sports category,” Kegelman said. “That is explicitly restricted, unless otherwise authorized.”
The standards also respects agencies’ and marketers’ information as well. Publishers cannot disclose details about insertion orders, performance data or click data with our consulting with the agency and marketer first.
Even though user data was not as big an issue in 2002, when the T&C’s were last drawn up, it was thorny enough to prevent any decision on which party ultimately holds users’ data. As a result of that indecision, ownership of online data was shared by the publisher, advertiser and media buyer, with no real accountability. At the time, Greg Stuart, the former head of the IAB who worked on the last standards, criticized the agency, decrying the move as protectionism and the “anti-fair-trade” version of online advertising.
Earlier this year, WPP Group grew impatient with the slow process of updating the contract language. So it stepped into the breach and amended the boilerplate to claim ownership for itself of all data related to its online ads. At the time, the media buyer felt that it needed to take matter into its own hands to block rival ad companies from extracting the data and using it for their own campaigns.
The new rules call for publishers, marketers and agencies to post privacy policies on their respective sites. The standards also deal with a range of other issues, such as makegoods (if an ad isn’t delivered as promised, the publisher is responsible and must tell the agency within two weeks).
Posted In: Advertising, Legal, Policy
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