Privacy is an issue on everyone’s minds these days, especially as new laws and proposed legislation put consumer privacy under the microscope. The result has been headline worthy—the FTC sued Kochava, a leading ad tech firm and beauty brand Sephora paid out a seven-figure settlement in California.

Fortunately the television industry has an opportunity to avoid making the same mistakes as digital by placing consumer privacy first and foremost. This is a looming issue as the growth of streaming has made data a bigger part of the TV advertising equation. We asked our TVREV Thought Leaders Circle members for their hot takes on this important topic.

Field Garthwaite, CEO & Co-Founder at IRIS.TV spoke to how, rather than targeting consumers based on who they are, targeting them based on the shows they are watching (contextual targeting) ensures that TV ad campaigns remain privacy-focused by design.

Consumers expect privacy to be embedded in businesses' operations as they do not want to be forced to traverse a confusing maze of legalese while interacting with companies. The California Consumer Privacy Act and the California Privacy Rights Act, together with all the additional forthcoming privacy regulations from many other states, reflect the shift in society and consumer expectations. Any practice that isn’t privacy-by-design presents a substantial risk for publishers, ad platforms, and media buyers. While CTV does not utilize cookies and as other people-based identifiers are becoming less reliable, identification signals that protect users’ privacy need to be strengthened by gaining a deeper understanding of how users think and feel. This is possible through access to video-level content data that when analyzed and enriched can be used to target audiences contextually. We are collaborating with some of the most innovative technologies in the industry to put consumer privacy front and center by making video-level content signals accessible and actionable via the IRIS_ID to allow for more accurate planning, targeting, verifying, and measuring across streaming and CTV.

Bob Ivins, Chief Strategy Officer, InnovidXP looked at value of creating a decentralized, open-sourced platform that could be utilized as way for the industry to share first party data.

As focus on consumer privacy increases, privacy legislation evolves, and 3rd party identifiers disappear, all participants in the TV ecosystem, distributors, media owners, advertisers, and ad tech, recognize the important of building consented, 1st party relationships with consumers.  These relationships get manifested as participant-specific, 1st party data sets.  But if the industry is to neutralize the advantages that the internet has had in data, targeting and measurement, which is within reach, we must have a privacy preserving way to share data across the ecosystem. Legacy solutions will not work as they require data to move around and are both time consuming and expensive.  The most likely solution will be a decentralized platform, ideally open sourced, where each participant uses their own, secure, instance to share data – efficient, clean and cost effective.  What is missing today is broad adoption of this – the company that gets that first will benefit greatly from a network effect.

Rachel Glasser, Chief Privacy Officer at Magnite, focused in on the challenges the TV industry faces in adapting to the new digital environment and how the ad industry will need to create new frameworks and codes of conduct to account for that shift.

TV is beginning to embrace the digital landscape through CTV, however, there is still work to be done to ensure data is being collected and processed in a manner that complies with applicable laws and regulations. As TV media has historically operated on a more linear model vs digital, the industry has had to shift towards repurposing codes and guidelines that aim to regulate and provide guardrails around how personal information is used in a digital environment for TV. In this respect, the emerging data protection laws are not only meant to protect consumers and their personal information, but they will also help businesses learn more about their own practices and what they can do to ensure they are complying with these new laws. The advertising industry's effort to create new frameworks and codes of conduct are important to help ensure we are taking end users and these new regulations into account.

Nick Cicero, Vice President, Strategy at Conviva zeroed in on how privacy creates a competitive advantage, especially for companies that provide continuous streaming measurement and analytics.

Put simply, privacy is a competitive advantage today. As streaming video and advertising matures, audience measurement and targeting strategies need to evolve requiring both the publishers and advertisers to be good stewards of the data they collect and process.

A successful consumer data strategy requires trust and transparency, making consent and ethical use of the data critical components of the value exchange. As consumers prioritize data privacy, publishers should look to continuous streaming measurement and analytics companies like Conviva that can connect this ecosystem of data partners ensuring privacy stays at the forefront of all advertising. 

Elan Ashendorf, VP of Engineering at Madhive brought up the importance of having a multi-faceted approach to privacy while highlighting the important role cryptographic techniques can play.

As the cord-cutting movement continues, advertisers need to reach their audience with digital targeting capabilities in order to deliver their message in a precise and effective manner – all while keeping in mind consumer privacy. With regulations like GDPR and CCPA, it's important to have a multi-faceted approach to privacy. Madhive leverages a variety of technologies to ensure compliance and audience accuracy - including a number of cryptographic techniques alongside clean rooms in order to protect consumer data and any PII.

Dan Rosler, VP of Compliance, Flashtalking by Mediaocean noted the difficulty presented by a streaming TV ecosystem based on an app-based model and posed a question for our readers: would a small privacy QR code on ads work to help improve consumer privacy? Or is interactivity the path ahead. (You can even email him your thoughts at privacy@flashtalking.com

Mediaocean and Flashtalking are committed to consumer privacy transparency and choice in digital advertising, demonstrated by support for AdChoices, for our own privacy icon, and with published identity and privacy principles.  However, due to an app-based model, limited TV interactivity, extreme competitive pressure, and other factors, CTV presents privacy challenges which the industry is only beginning to tackle.  One current resource to highlight is the NAI’s Connected TV choices page, which provides consumers with information and opt-out instructions across many popular CTV platforms.  

As for our own efforts to improve transparency and choice in CTV, we are seeking feedback on CTV privacy options.  One idea is implementing a small privacy QR code (like an AdChoices icon) on every CTV ad, but would advertisers balk at that option?  Would consumers interact with it?  Or is the industry close enough to having broader support for TV interactivity that we should just be focused on that approach?  We welcome engagement from our clients and other interested parties at privacy@flashtalking.com

Our TVREV take is that TV is still in the early stages of dealing with privacy and that digital-style methods of dealing with privacy issues will soon prove inadequate.

This is because TV commercials, with their sight, sound and motion, create an emotional bond with the consumer and thus need to be treated differently than banner ads. That’s one reason we are big fans of contextual advertising. The other is that the household (versus individual) nature of TV viewing lends itself more to contextual targeting.

Which is why TV advertisers need to be more transparent about their data sources and why programmers need to ensure that their advertisers are being privacy compliant as well.

We are intrigued by consumer facing solutions such as the one suggested by Flashtalking by Mediaocean and by the offerings of Qonsent, the privacy-focused startup founded by OG TVREVver Jesse Redniss.

Give the complexity of the privacy issue, one thing is certain: the various players in the industry will need to work together to create viable solutions that meet the demands of consumer privacy laws and of consumers themselves, who are becoming more and more savvy as to how their data is being used.