Ad services giant Interpublic Group announced a deal to buy Acxiom’s data and marketing services business for $2.3 billion. Acxiom said it was considering such an option in March. Acxiom will retain its LiveRamp business and operate under the LiveRamp name. The deal gives Interpublic assets to help manage its clients’ customer data – a relatively new task for ad agencies.
Hi, it’s Jamie, the CDP Institute’s faithful Department of the Obvious Intern. Everyone else took today off but I volunteered to stay behind if they let me write the newsletter. Here are some of the obvious goodies I’ve recently collected.We’ll start with this PwC study on customer experience, which found that bad employees drive people away, not bad technology. Also, airlines have really bad service. There’s plenty of less-obvious stuff but I’ve ignored it.
There’s nothing like a good privacy breach to remind us why data privacy laws are needed. Computer security consultant Vinny Troia scanned the Internet for unprotected Elasticsearch databases and hit paydirt: 340 million records from marketing data compiler Exactis. It had lots of detailed information on U.S. consumers and business contacts, although nothing really sensitive like Social Security Number. This isn’t technically a “breach” since Exactis’ security wasn’t penetrated. They just didn’t have any.
Google is facing another antitrust lawsuit, this time in Canada, specifically focusing on anti-competitive practices in online advertising. The Competition Tribunal has been asked to order Google to sell two of its ad tech tools, prohibit future anti-competitive practices and fine the company billions of dollars. In response, Google points to a highly competitive market offering plenty of alternatives.