Los Angeles Sues Over Weather Channel App’s Data-Collection Practices

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The move is representative of changing winds on attitudes toward privacy in the location data ecosystem. Following a series of New York Times Facebook and location data exposés and explainers, and with America’s own GDPR, the California Consumer Privacy Act, slated to go into effect on January 1, 2019, companies are waking up to a new reality in which selling and sharing user data to the tune of billions of dollars in revenue with little oversight is over.

What’s Visual Search, and How Will It Play Out in 2019?

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While visual search isn’t exactly catching on like fire yet, its evolution is buttressed by powerful developments of late in the tech industry. Among these: smartphones are increasingly ubiquitous, more efficient, and we’re all more accustomed to using them; investment in AI from both big companies and startups is widespread, making machine vision more effective; and augmented reality (AR), a similar modality in which tech overlays graphics onto images captured via camera lens, is taking off. Below are a few ways visual search will play out in local and retail in 2019.

The Transparency Trap: On Low Standards for ‘Transparency’ in the Data Market

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Jake Moskowitz: In media, transparency demands accountability. In other words, it means asking media suppliers to “prove it.” It means expecting suppliers to “show me the viewability and fraud percentages, and allow me to suppress ads from running next to unsafe content.” Today, when it pertains to data, transparency just means “tell me where the data came from”—that’s it. That is not enough.

2019 Location Data Predictions: Mobile, Privacy, and Explosive Growth

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Greg Isbister: The next year will see a marked shift for location data. As consumers and businesses alike see more value and additional uses for this data, industry growth will continue to increase exponentially. Until regulations are put in place to increase security and transparency, it will be up to businesses to institute their own best practices, getting ahead of legislation to come.

The Location Angle on Another Bombshell Privacy Exposé from the New York Times

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What exactly did Facebook do wrong, and what do its supposed wrongs portend for the future of data-driven, and especially location data-driven, marketing? Here are some major takeaways pertaining to future legislation, likely consumer reactions, and the distinction between data selling and sharing.

Will Consumer Privacy Be the Defining Issue of 2019?

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Though their terms are not identical, in essence both GDPR and CCPA are designed to give consumers the power to stop companies from collecting personal data, to review all personal data a company may have collected, and to request deletion of any stored data. Both regulations strike a major blow in favor of the concept that ownership of personal data ultimately resides with the individual and not with companies who may profit from it.

Beyond Proximity Offers: The Second Act of Beacons is Underway

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Beacons have grown into a nuanced component of successful mobile marketing. We’ve learned what they do best—strengthen advertiser approaches to metrics and measurement as well as the relevance and contextual richness of on-the-ground, in- or near-store experiences—and we’ve figured out that while push notifications can be a part of the story, they aren’t the main narrative.

Location Data Industry Gets Huge Wake-Up Call on Monday

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Platforms, brands, and vendors benefiting from the reams of location data used to hit consumers with highly targeted ads should be paying attention to a change suggested by Google and Facebook’s appearances before government authorities, a New York Times exposé out Monday, and most importantly the impending arrival of GDPR-like legislation in the United States: 2019 will be the year privacy actually matters, posing a potentially devastating threat to the status quo of the location-based data and marketing industries.

Seven Hard Truths About Location Data Accuracy

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You need proven industry benchmarks if you want to set realistic goals and expectations for location data-driven marketing. Going forward, these norms can help you form and answer key questions about location data-based tactics, so you can make more informed data decisions.

Untangling the Location Data Ecosystem

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As the location data industry progresses as a community, companies in our ecosystem naturally form into a kind of pyramid—NOT a hierarchical one but one that reflects how the different location companies fit into the ecosystem, who does what, their limitations, and their areas of focus.

Survey: Marketers Toss Out Valuable Location Data

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What if seemingly inconsequential data—and location data, in particular—could actually be re-harnessed and used to provide additional revenue-generating opportunities for brands? That’s the concept behind a new report out from the global geolocation data and services provider Digital Element.

Survey: Multi-Location Brands’ Most Effective Local Marketing Tactics

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Brands surveyed by Street Fight rate email, direct mail, and their company page on social media as their most effective local marketing tactics. At the same time, a small group of early adopters is using location data to make their overall local digital marketing more effective.

Uberall Acquires Rival Navads, Announces $25M in Fresh Funding

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Location marketing firm Uberall has acquired rival Navads and raised an additional $25 million in venture funding after closing a series B for the same amount just earlier this year. The exact terms of the acquisition deal are undisclosed.

Dstillery Launches Data Visualization Tool Dscover Maps, Fueled by Quality Audience Profiles

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On Monday, applied data science company Dstillery of New York City launched its Dscover Maps product, which allows advertisers to get a big-picture view of audience data by geography. Dstillery throws out data points that aren’t useful to them—about 60 to 75% of data—leaving only quality information.

How EU Data Regulations Could Benefit Global Brands

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With less than three months to go until the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation goes into effect, businesses around the globe are looking for information on how to stay in compliance with what’s been described as the most important change in data privacy regulations in the past two decades.

Momentum Builds for Third-Party Location Data; Brands See Correlation with Marketing Effectiveness

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Third-party customer location data isn’t used widely by multi-location brands, but those that use it appear to have better success with local digital marketing.

Understanding the Proxies That Can Undermine Location Data

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For marketers, the ability to deploy technology that identifies and bypasses online users who may be masking their locations and digital traits yields improvement in the form of targeted campaigns and fewer wasted impressions.

Why Carrier Data Is the Key to Unlocking Mobile Verification

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Brands like P&G are placing new demands on agencies and media providers for increased transparency and accountability, which in turn has led to significant advances in areas like viewability. The next battleground is clearly verifying the data accuracy of the underlying ingredients – namely the quality of data used for targeting and measurement.

Taking the Pulse of the Location Data Ecosystem

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Companies selling location and proximity data and services themselves concede that it’s a pretty small market, but that location data is an increasingly critical signal for a variety of marketing, operations, and product features well beyond mobile advertising.

Two Mobile Marketing Studies Sketch Location Data’s Role in Cross-Channel Measurement

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The reports released last week by industry organizations provide useful advice on mobile marketing tactics and using location data. Both studies point to the need to apply integrated, cross-channel measurement techniques, and to use location data for targeting, customer segmentation, and attribution.