How Emerse works with GDPR
Below, we explain what the new data protection law called GDPR means to you as a customer and how we, as a supplier in today’s complex online eco-system for online marketing, satisfy the new regulations. In this article, we mean to help you understand how you are affected. We also explain how users of the Emerse smart-tag can customize their site and privacy policy accordingly.
If you are an individual
The text on this page is primarily for our clients. If you are an individual looking for information about our privacy policy, it can be found here: https://www.emerse.com/privacy-policy/
What is GDPR?
With the Internet, our way of communicating and how we perform our everyday tasks has changed drastically. We e-mail and we share documents. We shop online and often fill in our personal information without considering how the information might be used. This is why the EU has pushed through a new European data protection regulation called the GDPR, (General Data Protection Regulation). This comes into force in May 2018. This Regulation will affect the way companies collect, store and use personal data and is designed to give individuals better control over their personal data.
Why is personal data collected?
We and our customers are able to collect different types of digital information such as IP addresses and the websites people visit, etc. This is with the express purpose of providing customized and relevant communication – all intended to give visitors a better browsing experience. It means that we help filter out some of the irrelevant information from among the media noise.
Personal data that has been identified or encrypted, but can still be used to identify a person remains personal data and is covered by GDPR. However personal data that has been made anonymous in such a way that you can no longer link it to an individual is no longer counted as personal data.
What is retargeting?
Being served content you don’t want, is a poor online experience. But being offered content that fits you perfectly is of course more interesting. To give a few examples; if you have small children you would probably find it relevant to receive diaper ads, or if you recently bought a new car, to be served car insurance deals. This is remarketing, a marketing technique where you can show ads to people who have been on a particular website or used a certain mobile app. This technique usually increases brand awareness, generates conversions, and is cost-effective marketing served from those who already know that you exist and have shown an interest, evidenced by your prior activity.
Retargeting works like this; when a user visits your website, the person gets a cookie connected to their browser. In turn, your ad may appear on other sites that the same person browses. Emerse, with our internal systems, can run re-targeting on almost all ad-powered pages on the Internet. This not only includes ad services like Google AdWords, Facebook, and Instagram, but also other pages like Aftonbladet, Expressen, and others.
How Emerse works with industry colleagues on GDPR
Along with industry colleagues from other AdTech companies within Programmatic, both in Europe and globally, Emerse was one of the first companies to support IAB’s Transparency & Consent Framework. This is a framework that enables a legitimate and flexible way of collecting consumer consent for the delivery of relevant online content. The intention is to avoid several different interfaces and standards. IAB Europe (Interactive Advertising Bureau) is Europe’s leading online marketing organization and represents over 5 500 organizations. As a sign of our active support, you can find us at advertisingconsent.eu
Emerse holds a license from EDAA for use of the Online Behavioral Advertising (OBA) icon. This means that the company works to support the advertising ecosystem in accordance with current consumer-friendly display ad standards.
How you, as an Emerse customer, should update your site and policy
To begin with, it is important that your company gets independent legal advice about GDPR. It’s a complicated regulatory framework that affects large parts of any organization, not just its site or the advertising on that site. Our recommendations are general recommendations. Because every business is unique, individual requirements for GDPR may differ. This is why we advise clients to take their own legal advice. If you run your business in Sweden, you might also care to contact Datainspektionen, who are responsible for the roll-out of GDPR in Sweden. Their customer service and in-house lawyers can help with many issues.
If you use our smart-tag to build an audience for retargeting, you need to obtain approval on your website for this data storage. There are a few different ways to do this as described below. Please note that you do not have to use the Emerse plug-in to obtain consent, you are free to choose any other solution either.
If you wish to use our technical solution for GDPR customization, two tags will need to be installed. One to opt-in, shown regardless of where the user lands on your site, it creates a pop-up for approval. Also one in the form of a check box where the user can choose to opt-out.
For further information. Here are some useful pages on GDPR that we would particularly like to recommend:
https://www.iabeurope.eu/category/policy/gdpr-implementation/
https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection_en
https://iabtechlab.com/standards/gdpr-transparency-and-consent-framework/
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/
You are also welcome to contact Robert Whelan, Data Protection Officer at Emerse, via mail robert.whelan@emerse.com or phone +46 46 3780106.