Making the Case (Again) for Anonymous Universal IDs, aka AUIDs and AUHIDs

Although the complexity of the crossplatform audience and ROI measurement space is mindboggling we see a clear path to accomplishing one stated goal determining the total frequency of an individual39s exposure to a specific brand ad campaignThe reason this goal has been impossible is that the information isn39t all in one place Each media seller to a given brand ad campaign has a piece of the data needed Each media seller knows how much frequency the campaign delivered to a specific ID That ID may be a device ID IP address cookie subscriber number MD5 or any other ID type in everyday use on the webWhat is needed is a way to add up each silo39s view of the world to the total holistic view as needed by the advertiser for each unique individual and householdPicture that APIs exist by which there is a place that each media seller39s automated systems can go to drop off the frequency that they delivered to a specific individual for a specific brand ad campaign And that the brand that paid for those impressions is the only one that can go pick up all that data and add it up By using an AdID code to identify each ad brands can more easily add up each execution39s total frequency counts across multiple platforms And by using EIDRs a unique ID for movie and TV assets each ad impression39s program environment can also be knownThe one missing element is that individual consumer39s ID Sure there are tons of IDs for that individual but there isn39t a single one that is common to all media sellers while also being anonymous Names and addresses are common to all media sellers but they are not anonymousOnce we establish an Anonymous Universal ID then it will be easy not only to meet this one advertiserdefined requirement but also far easier to solve them allActually not one but two registries are needed one for individual consumers and the other for households And we must know the connection between an individual and a household between households and devices and between individuals and devices The individual Anonymous Universal ID is called an AUID while household registry IDs are known as AUHIDsToday39s Privacy Safe Harbors eg Experian and ID Graphs such as LiveRamp are templates for the Anonymous Universal ID system however they are all incomplete don39t cover every American individual and household and contain inaccuracies amp8212 the combined effect causing match rates to average about 70 percent when lined up against any other databaseThe needed database must cover all Americans as well as their households and devices without revealing personally identifiable information PII And it must be updated continuouslyMy appreciation to Harold Geller for pointing out that the Brand Safety Institute amp8212 with contributions from AdID TAG and IAB Tech Lab amp8212 put forth a paper in 2019 making the same recommendation we make here within the context of raising awareness as to the other key IDs that the industry has created to ensure proper identification of creative assets program content assets companies individuals and households The paper suggests that IAB Tech Lab39s DigiTrust IDs are the closest thing to AUIDs that exist today This might be one logical path that could lead to AUIDs It appears that DigiTrust IDs identify browsers tied to individuals and households if so then some work has to be done to extend DigiTrust IDs to devices using apps rather than browsers including mobile devices and TVsJordan Mitchell senior vice president head of consumer privacy identity and data at IAB Tech Lab confirms that the DigiTrust ID quotis nothing more than a cookie itself for privacy reasons and therefore subject to the limitations of cookies It39s not crossdevice or at a household level It39s not even at an individual level since I may have multiple browser instances amp8230 across multiple devicesquotAnd Dennis Buchheim president of IAB Tech Lab adds quotWe don39t expect to extend DigiTrust ID to support inapp or other use casesamp8230 and we actually don39t expect to develop any new identifier at this point either We39re focusing on technical standards and compliance programs for other identifiers in market globallyquotThus it appears that our call for AUIDs is in fact necessary and additive to known movements already afoot todayThe Census Bureau would be another ideal entity to carry out such a plan Assuming the charge was 50 cent CPM impressions the initial revenue to the federal government would be twice the post office39s annual loss And as more of the total media advertising business becomes digital over time the eventual level would be a multiple of its initial levelThe ANA ARF CIMM IAB MASB MMA MRC VAB W3C and WFA could band together in standardssetting designing and governing such an entityDon39t recognize W3C That39s the World Wide Web Consortium which sets the standards for the web although it39s hard to say that any entity actually governs the InternetIronically I brought up the idea of an Anonymous Universal ID at W3C39s first meeting on December 14 1994 I pointed out that cookies which Lou Montulli invented in June of that year are not universal are only meaningful to the individual media supplier that places it amp8212 unless arrangements are made to share them amp8212 which creates privacy problems and can be deletedTim BernersLee inventor of the World Wide Web ran the meeting which took place at MIT Yahoo cofounder Jerry Yang was a friend and probably the one who had me invited since no one else among the 100 attendees was from the advertising industry as far as I could tellIn fact they nearly ran me out They perceived that an Anonymous Universal ID could only be useful to the ad industry and wanted to bar ads from the web entirely Back in 1994 they actually thought consumers were going to pay for everything The attendees didn39t want to hear that even content people would find it usefulAdvertising branded content and ecommerce have turned out to be the way to fund the web It39s hard to imagine that extremely smart professionals balked at the possibility a mere 26 years agoThings would have been very different if we had AUIDs from 1994 to now They are an inevitability regardless of the entities that make them a realityAny technology including AUIDs will create more opportunities for bad guys to do bad things The need to regulate and prosecute will never go away until all human beings have evolved to the highest states of consciousness But that is not a reason to avoid the opportunity to create such a systemIn this century the first reappearance of this idea was February 26 2020 as part of my remarks on a panel at the Marketing Accountability Standards Board MASB 2020 Winter Summit The esteemed leaders representing highlevel marketers media mavericks and academics reacted so positively that I am emboldened to once again bring up the idea here for us to considerDon39t stop now Stay in the know on advertising trends and ROI strategies with more from Bill HarveyClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNetamp160

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Making the Case (Again) for Anonymous Universal IDs, aka AUIDs and AUHIDs

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