Onboarding Offline Data: How Ads Are Served Online Based on Consumers’ Offline Activity and the Privacy Issues to Watch For

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Presented at PracticalPrivacySeries 2014 by

Becky Burr

Ken Dreifach

Kenneth Mortensen

“The marriage of online and offline is the ad targeting of the last 10 years on steroids,” said Scott Howe, chief executive of Acxiom, at a conference earlier this year. This topic has not been discussed much, but the FTC is most definitely focused on it now. As described by the FTC, onboarding refers to a process whereby a data broker associates offline data with a cookie (the process of onboarding offline data) to enable advertisers to target consumers virtually anywhere on the Internet. It allows advertisers to use consumers' offline activities to determine what advertisements to serve them on the Internet. There’s great potential with this business model, but will consumers embrace it or find it just plain creepy? How does the data flow from the advertiser’s offline CRM database to the user’s browser? Does it remain anonymous? Is notice and choice necessary? If yes, who in the ad serving chain should offer choice? What are the best practices in the industry today? Join us to explore all these questions and many more as we dive into this growing issue.