Your Data - Do you know who's sharing it?

Something that has been on my mind lately is how insecure advertiser and consumer data really is on the Web. Trust doesn't seem to exist in the online world and for good reason. Data is completely portable for those that know how to get it.

It is too bad that most agencies and publishers have no idea how the technology works or are too busy to pay attention to what information is being provided in every ad transaction and worse yet made completely available via that login being passed from agency to publisher.

As an industry we have become completely reliant on vendors of all shapes and sizes to help us become more efficient, most notably the third party ad server (both standard and rich media). Agencies using these vendors are not only in the creative and media planning business but they are also now in the business of sharing confidential information. Agency trafficking teams are so overworked that they frequently reuse or mistakenly send incorrect login info to publishers violating their confidentiality. Publishers frequently gain access to delivery data of other publishers thinking that it is specific to the campaign they are running with the agency. Now most publisher ad operations folks understand this and take the high road with the information, quickly deleting the email and requesting the correct access to their reports.

But worse yet is that because of our fast pace and limited resources actual IOs, the contracts by which advertising is bought and sold, are frequently sent to the wrong publishers. This is appalling and completely unacceptable! Agencies need to be held accountable for this and publishers better be aware that data is portable and you never know how or when it will get shared.