CDP Institute

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.

“Digital ID Audience Targeting” is the kind of headline that attracts my attention and presumably yours, Dear Reader. So I flagged this item from identity data vendor Infutor but then struggled to figure out what it meant. Beneath it all, Infutor is appending email addresses to clients’ existing customer records. Nothing new about that but cleverly positioned as a way to improve match rates for social and programmatic display campaigns. Good for them.

The ability to offer surveys is a genuinely new feature for Evergage. It may seem minor but Evergage is a CDP and you do seem interested in CDP vendor announcements, Dear Reader. So here you go.

Here’s one more product extension: Yotpo, whose technology helps to gather user-generated content and reviews, has added a suite of AI-powered solutions. What’s noteworthy is the sophistication of the AI: for example, it suggests relevant review topics to each customer based on their previous submissions and search history. Impressive.

Another perennial challenge that suddenly seems to have many solutions is measuring the impact of advertising on retail sales. Nielsen Catalina Solutions, which combines Nielsen TV viewing data with Catalina’s retail purchase information, has just launched new variation of its service. This one is focused on measuring the combined impact of ads viewed on different types of TV and video devices.

CDP mParticle has added an integration with Google Customer Match, making it easier to send mParticle audiences for Google to match against. mParticle already had similar integrations with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Snapchat. I’m not sure this qualifies as newsworthy but you do seem to like items that feature CDP vendors, Dear Reader.

Remember when targeting TV ads at individuals seemed like an impossible dream? Today, options abound. Streaming TV hardware vendor Roku is the latest to monetize its customers, offering an audience marketplace based on its direct customer relationships.

One of the biggest challenges companies face in protecting customer data is just finding where sensitive data sits in their systems. BigID does that, assess risks, and helps to manage resolutions. They just raised a $30 million Series B, bringing total to $46.1 million

Sometimes the problem isn’t protecting identity but figuring it out. Senzing does real-time, self-tuning identity resolution using G2 technology its team members built at IBM and have since licensed. They’ve just added a fraud detection application to their Customer 360, GDPR and general applications.

Other times the problem is making sure people are really who they claim to be. Ping Identity does that for corporate employees and partners as well as customers. They’ve just bought Elastic Beam, which helps block cyberattacks through API connections.

Fresh on the heels of its Time Warner acquisition, AT&T has announced plans to buy digital ad marketplace AppNexus. It will provide core technology for the TV advertising and analytics unit AT&T set up last August. AT&T has more than 170 million direct consumer relationships across its wireless, video, and broadband businesses. These could position it as an alternative to Facebook, Google, and others who control their own mass audiences.

One reason that AT&T’s direct relationships are important is fear that privacy rules like GDPR will hobble the advertising based on third party relationships. Not yet, according to Digiday: programmatic ad buys are starting to recover after an initial drop when GDPR went into effect last month.