Well, that escalated quickly. Just last week, we were commenting on a New York Times piece about cookie banners failing to protect web browser privacy.

Shortly after that article was published, European authorities wielded their might against digital data harvesters, ruling that these banners weren’t just bad, they actually haven’t been at all compliant with GDPR.

In other words, they’re illegal.

Basically, years on from the introduction of GDPR, data has still been flying around without express user consent.

Ad industry insiders have known this. Regulators have long suspected it. Now, the dominoes are falling, bringing the whole thing tumbling down.

Just late last week, the CNIL (a French data protection watchdog) added to the storm noting EU privacy laws had been breached via Google Analytics’ non-compliance with GDPR.

Expect more developments on this front.

And it’s not just cookies in the crosshairs. Facebook recently found itself in the bad graces of EU regulators that want to draft new legislation dictating how its citizens’ user data gets transferred.

The writing on the wall is that when it comes to privacy, clearer lines are being drawn where there was previously a whole lot of gray.

It certainly didn’t help that some market players viewed cookie banners as a mechanism to be gamed, brazenly burying excessive privacy language into fine print that ran completely counter to the original purpose.

Contrast this with diligent permissioning efforts associated with the collection of personally identifiable information (PII) data that companies like BRIDGE undertake.

Yes, I consent

Those are powerful words and they’re right there in normal font sizes. Right next to a checkbox that users can tick on or off before deciding whether they want to access a website, service or app.

And that consent is not in perpetuity either. The moment a consumer decides they want to withdraw it, they simply ask to be removed.

Out of an abundance of caution, we even go one step further.

If we receive a notice that someone wants to leave a certain audience, we completely remove them from every audience we include them in.

We believe that fully permissioned PII can stand up to a level of scrutiny originating from Europe that we suspect will also eventually make the voyage to the U.S.

When we work with clients, we are looking out for what is best for them, their marketing strategies and audiences in the long term. These clients recognize that the days of pseudo-anonymized data are numbered, that users want to engage with companies that respect their data and that working with fully-permissioned data provides the best flexibility for engaging marketing campaigns.

Want to learn more? Contact us here.