Telecom and Media Firms Selling Data Are Facing Backlash

Data privacy battles are heating up now that a group of US senators have asked regulators to investigate how telecom firms sell people’s location data.

Earlier this month, Vice’s Motherboard reported that bounty hunters could pinpoint a person’s cellphone after obtaining location data from data resellers. The report led 15 US senators to call for an investigation into how telecom firms handle their customers’ location data. The report also led AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile to pledge that they’ll stop selling location data to data aggregators.

Scandals like these have proliferated just since the start of 2019. Just a few weeks ago, Cambridge Analytica pleaded guilty to violating European data laws after the firm refused to disclose how much data it held on a Parsons professor.

Controversies over the handling of personal data are not going away anytime soon—and it could be bad news for media companies that profit from selling data.

Although some publishers are opening up new lines of revenues by selling their data in a way that allows advertisers to use it independently of the publisher’s inventory, most media companies are not doing this.  

In a survey by Lotame of 300 US senior decision-makers at digital media and marketing companies, one-third of those polled reported that they’re selling their audience data. Put another way, nearly seven in 10 respondents were not data sellers.  
Why Do US Publishers and Brand Marketers Use Audience Data? (% of respondents, Nov 2018)

New York Media is one such publisher. This is done out of respect for its audience, says Daniel Hallac, New York Media’s chief product officer. “We are trying to develop a long-term relationship with them, and like any relationship, it needs to be built on trust,” he said.

Courtesy of eMarketer

 

Skip to content