Conference News July-August 2021 | Page 46

46 Data

WHO OWNS THE DATA ?

Global event auditor BPA president and CEO Glenn Hansen discusses the need for standards in digital events , including data ownership .
n June 2020 , we at BPA Worldwide published an open letter to the industry on the subject of data leakage in the ‘ bidstream ’. It was still early days in the Covid pandemic and digital events were just becoming du jour . Our writing at that time pertained to the digital eco-system and the process of programmatic buying and selling .
With the advent of the header bidder process , advertising inventory gets exposed to all interested parties simultaneously . To aid the buyers ’ evaluation process , the inventory that is available exposes user data to all those bidding on the ad space . It is designed to help advertisers reach the desired target audience with an efficient buying process . Makes sense . However , what also happens is some data platforms bid on advertising space with no intention of winning the bid . Rather , they are there to harvest the data of web users and convert that data into products and services . The data harvester would then monetise to the detriment of the media company originally offering the user an advert .
Generally speaking , media companies were not aware of their users ’ data being harvested in the bidstream . The signatories to our open letter worked with BPA to refresh IAB standard terms and conditions to better address data ownership .
So , what of the meetings and events industry ? Clearly the
Covid-19 crisis has disrupted the industry as much as the travel industry ( and a few others ). As a result , we have witnessed a shift from in-person events to digital conferences , meetings and events .
This shift was quick and without much industry oversight for those digital event platforms ( DEPs ) providing the technology . ( It was last reported to me that there are more than 300 such companies offering services to organisers .) www . conference-news . co . uk