Many publishers fear “data leakage,” the gross term for when sites lose their audience data to third parties that then use it for advertising elsewhere. This fear overlooks the fact that publishers have the power to weed out and block bad actors, or at least the parent networks running them. What’s more publishers themselves are to blame for exposing themselves to a maddeningly complicated supply chain of partners dedicated to everything from providing social tools to filling unsold inventory.

As familiar names like HMV and Blockbuster disappear from the High Street, web traffic can be expected to grow as a result. However, the increasing numbers of data aggregators and tracking tags being placed on websites are leading to slower loading pages, while advances in technology designed to save people time have made us less tolerant of waiting. 

As advancement continues in digital data gathering, utilization, and performance, technologists from all across the market are all seeking new ways to capitalize on tracking code. The growth in data being brought to bear is providing new opportunities for media delivery and advertising revenue.

Dozens of silent watchers, working for corporations that want to learn about you so they can sell you things, track you when you go online...."We're trying to reveal the invisible Web," says Scott Meyer, chief executive of Evidon, the New York digital advertising company that bought Ghostery from founder David Cancel three years ago. The Main Line-bred son of a former Sunoco marketing chief, Meyer was a Wall Street investment banker and the New York Times Co.'s digital media chief before joining investment firm Warburg Pincus and using the firm's capital to set up Evidon three years ago.

 

"We're trying to reveal the invisible Web," says Scott Meyer, chief executive of Evidon, the New York digital advertising company that bought Ghostery from founder David Cancel three years ago.

Anyone who’s been following the twists and turns of the raging Do Not Track debate knows that both sides are still pretty far apart. Privacy advocates want consumers to have the ability to block all tracking. Period, full stop.

In 1921, the first year the statistic was recorded, the US driving fatality rate was 24%. For the 55 billion miles driven that year, there were over 13,000 deaths. Cars were relatively new, roads and road systems were novel, but consumers’ distrust and fear were growing. How would the nascent auto industry and government work together to regain customer trust and confidence in the industry’s investment in protecting their safety?

The typical ad-industry data-science professional holds a masters or doctoral degree in computer engineering, statistics, and similar fields. But Andy Kahl is anything but typical. The director of data analysis at ad-privacy-services firm Evidon studied anthropology and religion, and got his start in targeted advertising by developing a campaign for a car dealer.

Web users should have the right to request data held by internet firms such as Google and Facebook is removed for good.  A recent poll on V3 asked whether web users should have the right to be forgotten, and the overwhelmingly majority, 82 percent, said that yes, the right to request data be deleted is a must....The results were not surprising, according to Andy Kahl, senior product strategist at Ghostery, which provides tools to those concerned with how websites monitor users and gather data.

...If that answer is they have meaningful first-party data, they’re now figuring out how to block people from accessing that data. It can use services like Evidon to do an audit on just who is dropping cookies or firing pixels. That’s the first step to getting the data house in order.

Don't like ads on your phone? Two tech companies allied with the online ad industry are offering new ways to control them. Evidon, one of two providers of the Ad Choices icon -- the tiny blue symbol shown in behaviorally-targeted display ads -- has just begun delivering the icon and the opt-out system behind it into mobile app ads served by the Jumptap and Tapad networks. More mobile app ad partners are lined up to do the same.