Barking up the same tree, TV ad buying and measurement vendor VideoAmp has acquired IronGrid Data Services, which provides access to “secure, anonymized, and privacy-complaint” TV viewership data from video program providers and connected TVs. VideoAmp will use this as part of a new data division that aggregates data from set-top boxes and automated content recognition to provide segmentation and viewership data.
Here’s one of those “I thought they could already do that” items: identity specialist Signal announced the ability to do real-time identity resolution and data onboarding, meaning it can look up external data about a Web site visitor as soon as they appear. Looking up internal data about known visitors isn’t unique but identifying and appending external data about unknown visitors is something else.
Finally, news that in-app video advertising platform Vungle was bought by private equity investor Blackstone for a reported $750 million or more. You probably wouldn’t have read this if that number weren’t so large. I know I wouldn’t have written it.
Procrastinators of the world can throw a party whenever they get around to it: Google has once more pushed back complete third-party cookie deprecation. The new target is “early next year.” Reasons for the delay include concerns expressed by U.K. data regulator Information Commissioner’s Office, an ongoing inquiry by the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority, and widespread discontent in the advertising ecosystem.