As the Internet grew and connected the world, cookies have been and are key instruments to carry out precise segmentations and identify users based on their preferences, interests and interactions. This small text file, designed to make … Also our most intuitive navigation became the pillar of digital advertising and e-commerce. However, consumer demands for greater control over their data and stricter regulations around its use have marked a turning point in how companies manage personal information. It is in this context where ‘Data Clean Rooms’ (DCR) technologies have gained prominence by allowing access to information in a secure way, explains José Ramón Mencías, president of the Data Commission of IAB Spain & Data Solutions Lead at ERIS. -Publicis Groupe. «DCRs are secure virtual spaces and generally clouds, which facilitate collaboration between companies, allowing advertisers and companies of different types to share information securely, providing analysis based on combined data without compromising the privacy of consumers and ensuring specific use. that has been agreed,” he says.
These environments are not something new, researchers have used ‘Secure Data Environments’ for many years to access sensitive data in a controlled environment. But its current boom lies in “allowing organizations to collaborate, each providing their data, to be able to analyze them as a whole, drawing conclusions that we could not reach by analyzing the data separately,” clarifies Jordi Soria, professor of the Studies of Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications at the UOC.
But since Google announced the progressive elimination of third-party cookies last June 2024, questions have been raised about companies’ strategies to access key data without compromising consumer trust. Could it be that this progressive depreciation is directly linked to the proliferation of DCR? Everything points to yes since they respond to the void left by traditional identification solutions, offering an ethical and effective alternative in a context marked by strict regulations and social expectations.
Its rise in Europe is driven in part by the need to comply with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) while using data to meet consumer expectations for personalized service. In Spain, its adoption is still in an emerging phase. As awareness of privacy issues grows and regulatory pressures increase, more Spanish companies are likely to explore DCRs as part of their data strategy, explains Peter Bell, vice president of EMEA Marketing at Twilio. In the short and medium term, growth can be expected as companies seek to maintain competitive advantages in digital marketing while complying with privacy laws. The initiatives of European technology companies and collaborations between local companies and technology providers will probably drive this evolution, allowing Spanish companies to take advantage of the benefits of DCR effectively.
Wide applications
If we take stock, continues José Ramón Mencías, this type of solutions especially favors retailers. “Historically, and unlike mass consumer brands, retailers such as Walmart, Carrefour or El Corte Inglés, are those that have maintained a relationship and direct communication with the consumer through their digital environments or loyalty programs.” And through ‘Data Clean Rooms’, these ‘retailers’ can put their data assets into value, offering possibilities of segmentation, measurement and knowledge about consumers to manufacturers. For his part, Peter Bell indicates that, especially companies dedicated to digital advertising and electronic commerce, are the ones that benefit significantly because they allow the overlap of audiences to be analyzed or the effectiveness of advertising campaigns to be measured. While it is true that, in Spain, “industries such as retail, finance and telecommunications are increasingly taking advantage of these solutions to improve customer insights while maintaining privacy compliance.” And Jordi Soria highlights its application in health because it can allow hospitals, laboratories and pharmaceutical companies to analyze clinical data together, or in finance, to detect fraud patterns by analyzing transactions in different banks.
Operation
The operation of these platforms is relatively simple, explains Professor Soria. Each participating organization provides its own data after subjecting it to a process known as pseudonymization. This procedure consists of replacing the fields that allow an individual to be identified with pseudonyms. For example, an email address such as name@email.com can be transformed using an algorithm such as SHA-1, then generating a unique pseudonym such as 28a8ca085cbbf88fea54eee7b83d4247b22ed59c. Although this pseudonym continues to identify the data record because it is derived from it, it does not directly allow us to know the real identity of the individual. Its strength lies in the possibility of cross-referencing and analyzing data provided by different organizations using these common pseudonyms. By applying the same pseudonymization process, platforms can link records from various sources and analyze the information together, unlocking insights that could not be obtained if the data were evaluated in isolation. However, it is important to note that pseudonymization alone does not completely eliminate the risk of re-identification of a record, especially if someone has access to other related data that can be linked to the pseudonym. For this reason, ‘Data Clean Rooms’ implement strict additional controls that ensure that only statistical and aggregated information can be extracted from the analyses.
Costs for SMEs
As with many other IT infrastructures, the cost of a ‘Data Clean Room’ represents a considerable challenge for SMEs. Although some large online service providers, such as Google, AWS and Microsoft, offer these solutions for free, access is usually restricted to large customers. This exclusivity reinforces a technological gap that can limit smaller companies in their ability to compete on equal terms within the digital ecosystem. Currently, leading platforms such as AWS Clean Rooms, Azure Databricks Clean Rooms, Google Ads Data Hub, and LiveRamp are designed for large organizations with the ability to make significant investments in infrastructure and specialized talent. At this point, Soria highlights that, although these tools are very useful for measuring the impact of advertising campaigns, it is important to keep in mind that in these cases the real risk of re-identification of pseudonymized records by the provider is high.
Replacing personal data with identifiers allows you to work with data in a useful and anonymous way
On the other hand, solutions such as Twilio Segment specify that, although the cost and complexity of implementation represents a challenge for SMEs that may “continue to have difficulties with the financial and technical resources necessary to fully use these technologies”, what they provide is to maximize the return on investment of data collaboration projects while maintaining compliance with privacy regulations. However, as DCRs become standardized and their use is democratized, it is foreseeable that competition between providers will increase and therefore costs will decrease.
#clean #alternative #sharing #data #devour #cookies
