Digital Innovation New Publishing Tech
2 mins read

Sourcepoint launches ‘Privacy Lens’ to provide compliance and data ethics visibility for publishers

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Data privacy software specialist Sourcepoint has launched Privacy Lens, which the company claims is a first-of-its-kind privacy measurement and analytics platform for brands and publishers.

Privacy Lens aims to provide publishers with a greater understanding of how buyers are evaluating the privacy experiences on their properties. Proprietary scanning technology measures the performance of media inventory against the growing set of privacy compliance and digital citizenship rules, in real-time. Brand advertisers can also select rules to create custom standards informed by their own organisation’s privacy strategy and risk profile.

In addition to evaluating regulatory compliance, Privacy Lens checks for adherence with the IAB’s Transparency & Consent Framework, the IAB CCPA Compliance Framework, as well as markers of strong digital citizenship, such as the absence of intrusive identifying techniques (i.e., device fingerprinting), user-friendly opt-out workflows, or data breach risk (i.e., identifiers shared without adequate hashing/encryption in the bid requests).

Media sellers can also visualize the potential revenue impact of different Privacy Lens rules, and use that data to optimize their privacy program to drive incremental revenue. These insights are critical in order for publishers to stay abreast of evolving standards, and continue to improve their consumer privacy experiences while maximizing monetization.

Aligning incentives for both buyers and sellers, Privacy Lens improves privacy standards for the entire ecosystem.

Ben Barokas, Sourcepoint Co-Founder and CEO

The launch follows on the heels of privacy compliance regulations at an international, national and regional level – in total, more than 100 countries worldwide have now introduced some form of privacy laws which seek to protect the information of internet users.

Of particular concern is the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) which came into effect January 2020. The legislation requires online publishers to display a “clear and conspicuous” link on their homepages allowing California residents to request that their personal information is not sold on.

However, legal ambiguity around the word “sale”, combined with the need for individuals to opt-out on every website they visit, means that the CCPA is to be refined and, from a publisher perspective, further tightened-up in 2022. As a result, publishers will be required to carry out yearly audits that monitor whether other entities with which they share data properly comply with the regulations. New powers of enforcement will also be introduced.