The European Commission, last Friday, approved the creation of a joint venture between European operators Deutsche Telekom AG Orange SA, Telefónica S.A. and Vodafone Group plc, under the EU Merger Regulation. Aimed at providing brands and publishers in the countries of France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK with a platform for their digital marketing and advertising activities, the new venture will leverage a unique digital code associated with a subscriber's mobile or fixed network subscription as means of digital identification. This allows brands to recognize users on their websites or applications, subject to their consent and in a pseudonymized manner, and thus track their preferences and tailor content and offerings to their specific needs.
Kostas Kastanis, Deputy CEO for Upstream, shares his thoughts on what this means for the digital advertising space and how operators are increasingly able to play a pivotal role in the digital advertising ecosystem.
Kastanis commented, "February 10th’s ruling by the European Commission is not just good news for the joint venture between Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefónica, and Vodafone, but also for all mobile operators. By allowing the joint venture to progress, privacy conscious Europe is showing the way for a new era in digital advertising."
"We will not be surprised to even see a domino effect in other parts of the world with mobile operators in LATAM, Africa and Asia exploring partnerships that will allow them to get into the digital advertising industry via user identification."
"Mobile operators pulling together, as a united front, could not have come at a better time. The use of a single privacy-led, digital identification technology solution can push telcos forward in claiming their space in the digital advertising ecosystem, in an ecosystem so far led by big tech. Past efforts by telcos to take charge of digital advertising have fallen short of expectations precisely because they’ve only offered partial market coverage for advertisers. A joint solution by operators can offer standardization across the board and a more enticing opportunity for brands and publishers."
"With the joint venture approved by the EC, we are waiting to see how this develops into a viable consumer solution that addresses their concerns around privacy and security and the control individuals have over their own data."
"When developing our own Mobile Identity solution, we realised that by sticking to first party data you can provide the control and reassurance that end users today require. Using first party data means that the information shared by a consumer is not recycled over the Internet and can only be used by the website that collected it. We are waiting to see how exactly TrustPid (initial name of the venture) will address this challenge and the technology behind it."
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