SANTA BARBARA — The emerging era of targeted over-the-top TV ads brings a consumer privacy challenge, says one vendor launching a new piece of technology to give consumers more control.
In January 2018, Tru Optik, a technology vendor that offers a data management platform for over-the-top (OTT) TV advertisers, launched OptOut.TV, giving consumers a one-click way to refuse audience-based targeting of over-the-top TV ads.
Next up, a reboot is coming.
“We launched our optout.tv more than two years ago,” says CEO Andre Swanston. “It’s been white-labelled by a lot of the largest ad tech platforms to power their ability for opt-outs across connected TV advertising.
“In the coming weeks, we’re branding that as privacy.tv and adding on an additional suite of transparency and privacy capabilities for publishers and consumers, very importantly as well.”
Centralized privacy dashboards allowing consumers to control or opt out of ad targeting from certain companies include YourOnlineChoices, the related AboutAds.info/WebChoices from the Digital Advertising Alliance, plus the National Advertising Initiative’s opt-out feature.
Consumers can also use individual services’ privacy controls to opt out.
Swanston thinks privacy control will be important in the connected TV era, because privacy informs brand safety.
“No-one wants to have their brand going in front of ISIS or Al Qaeda video,” he says. “When we think about a premium television, it’s less about the content and more about privacy compliance or how data is used, what data is used, and making sure that those are in line with how our brand portrays itself.”
He wants Tru Optik’s dashboard to get out ahead of ad privacy legislation on dockets in California and elsewhere.
“Now it’s not just California,” Swanston says. “There’s seven to 10 other states that have things either on the ballot or are pushing other initiatives that would change the way data can be used.
“Most of these laws are pretty poorly written or relatively ambiguous, I think, so there’s been a lot of uncertainty around the industry about how to prepare for them.
“We don’t really wait for whether it’s a legal regulation or if it’s something like the IAB to put out standards.”
Tru Optik’s technology helps marketers with targeting OTT viewers, measuring consumption and tracking attribution using first- and third-party data.
This video is from a series leading up to, and covering, the Xandr Relevance Conference in Santa Barbara. This Beet.TV series is sponsored by Xandr. Please visit this page to find more videos from the series.
