Understandably, selling location data from your app without knowing exactly where it goes can feel like loading someone’s belongings into a pirate ship and letting it sail into the abyss. That’s why we’re explaining what happens when you safely trade your anonymised user data with a General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) data partner, and where it ends up. If you haven’t heard by now, the updated GDPR regulation from the EU Parliament is a response to the concern over data-driven customer discrimination and the lack of transparency surrounding digital privacy as a whole.
Creating the ideal customer
With the internet bubbling over with too much content, brands like Nike and Home24 have to stand out by creating better ads based on real (not gut-feeling) audience behavior. To do this, they use your real-life location data to identify whether someone would actually be interested in their product.
Let’s say Nike wants to target amateur soccer players in Berlin. They give a data management platform (DMP) an abstract targeting profile, e.g. people who play soccer in Berlin three times a week. We can infer from our statistical models that somebody is playing soccer based on the location data gathered from our SDK integrated in your app. We tell Nike which devices routinely go to soccer fields three times a week. A few weeks later these players receive a newsfeed ad that says, “Sale on cleats this summer – only in Berlin stores!” on their way to the field.
Why you need a partner
Raw data is almost useless on its own. Through a DMP, it gets transformed, processed and segmented by our data scientists and statistical models. We analyse the movement patterns and time to predict their interests and behaviours through their activities. By working with a partner who can derive accurate insights from raw data while respecting the legal limitations of data use, you don’t have to hand over your unprocessed location data to advertisers.
Safety and ethics
When choosing a data partner, ask what it’s used for, don’t be shy! Location data can also be misused to target people who are in vulnerable positions such as those with medical conditions — don’t partner with companies that sell to health, insurance companies or any organisation that discriminates based on race or sexual orientation.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was updated to protect the privacy of European citizens. To protect your users, ensure your app is GDPR-compliant and pick a data partner that follows suit. As of May 2018, it will be mandatory to make it crystal clear to a European citizen that they can opt in and out of sharing their geo-location, and they should also be able to easily wipe it off the face of the earth whenever they want to.
Asking your partners for transparency and abiding by ethics is the key to understanding exactly what happens to your data when you sell it. You have the right to know what happens every step of the way.
If you’re still scratching your head over what your data is used for or how to monetise it, visit our supply page at www.predict.io/dmps or get in contact with us at support@predict.io.
