Current real time bidding processes for online ads grossly violate the European Union’s privacy rules, says a report from the UK’s Information Commissioner, who is in charge of such things. She cites both General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PERC). Enforcement actions haven’t followed but the message is clear.

Clear Channel Outdoor has more than 450,000 outdoor displays worldwide. At least some of those track nearby mobile devices, which lets the company profile ad audiences, measure campaign impact, and cross-target ads. The company is now letting advertisers upload their own customer data to its system to allow even richer analysis. Plenty of individual-level data here although it’s technically anonymous.

With CDP vendors increasing their workforces by 3.4% in six months, compared with an average of 0.2% each six months over the prior two years, the sector seems to be growing again, according to our own semi-annual industry update. There is much talk of composable CDPs but they still employ no more than 5% of the sector workforce. What is a clear trend is the acquisition of independent CDPs by vendors interested in adding a CDP to a larger system (usually an activation system).