Redesigning the digital ads market into a human-centric system

Newswires continue to buzz about active litigation over data transmission, data privacy and consumer privacy rights. These efforts are an attempt at making our use of the internet more secure. But on the other side of the equation, privacy advocates are forgetting about the section of the market that is losing precision in advertising campaigns, as well as the ability to reach target audiences and deliver the message accurately and on time.

The market, in turn, is responding with new initiatives to optimise and restructure its data handling, data transmission projects which are accompanied by huge legal fees for lawyers, just to maintain the usual framework, where every user can be counted and identified, and more ad messages will reach the proper audience the required number of times, and ideally, the results are constantly and precisely reported by a third party tracker.

However, despite significant efforts to keep things as they are, old problems haven’t vanished, while new ones are popping up:

- Ad buying remains a non-transparent structure with multilayered net of intermediaries, unclear players, hidden commissions, ubiquitous fraud, brand safety and tracking issues.

- Tech giants continue to take over the data-driven markets by taking advantage of their special position. In the advertising market, they continue to be the player, the judge and the cashier, all at the same time. As noted in one of the lawsuits gaining momentum in the US:

“Google owns the largest buy-side and sell-side brokers. As one senior Google employee admitted, “the analogy would be if Goldman or Citibank owned the NYSE.” Or, more accurately, the analogy would be if Goldman or Citibank were a monopoly financial broker and owned the NYSE, which was a monopoly stock exchange.”

- GDPR restrictions for data transfers have led to a significant reduction in the amount of data available on the market. European restrictions for EU-US data transmission have become another challenge for the market. The clash between European data protection law and US surveillance powers has been again and again reinforced by the persistent transatlantic data transfer saga related to Max Schrems’ privacy advocacy group. The market got its first taste of these developments with the recent banning of Google Analytics in the EU.

- Hard-pressed by European regulators, Google is going to block third-party cookies sharing in Chrome in 2023. This promises to fundamentally roll back digital advertising, and for all marketers to return to panel research and modelling instead of technological solutions for analysing the trajectory of a particular project.

Consumers, on the one hand, are increasing their demands for a personalised experience and only engage with personalised messaging, and on the other hand, the same consumers are accusing brands of knowing too much about them and demanding tougher action penalising the brands for misuse of personal data. The widening gap between consumer expectations and brand capabilities in an outdated technological landscape is evident.

Redesigning the market with myGaru

At myGaru, we believe that the time has come not to attempt the preservation of the current state of things but to rethink the entire philosophy of advertising and brand-consumer interaction as such. This goal is based on the principles of openness, transparency and simplicity, both for the consumer and the advertiser, along with compliance to the basic requirements of the GDPR.

This is why our solution is based on a user-centric approach, where a specific individual identifies themselves openly but is in control of their digital identity, which is available for targeting by advertisers. This principle lays the foundation for trusted relationships between people and brands, where the individual turns from an object into a subject of the advertising market.

Anonymity and transparency

A two-tiered set of cryptographic tools allows us to technologically guarantee anonymity to the individual and transparency to the market by design. On the one hand, a session-based cryptographic Onion-like ID rules out the de-anonymisation of an individual during the use of the ID. On the other hand, being an end-to-end ecosystem, we exclude hundreds of intermediaries and cryptographically verify all ad transactions, which provides unprecedented market transparency. In our Audit log, we use a proven TLS-proof algorithm, which is used by various payment systems and cryptocurrencies for verification. This way, all participants of the ecosystem, including advertisers, get a standalone tool for mathematical validation of every ad transaction and every data access.

All-terrain ID

Our innovative identification technology allows user recognition independent of the tech giants' mischievous actions that have historically affected the market. myGaru ID is free from third-party cookies, browser and mobile OS policies. Real people, real consumption and all of these are verified subscribers of telecom operators, as well as households verified by their internet service provider. The dreams of marketers and brand-experience architects finally get the power of all-terrain cross-device ID accessible on any desktop, any mobile and even CTV.

Data Clean Room marketplace

By returning direct control of their data to the individual, we have opened the door for data vendors (e.g. telecom operators, retailers). Tapping into the ecosystem through integration with the myGaru Segments they get an ability to provide data to the market while staying in compliance with people’s privacy and the GDPR. By eliminating the possibility of enriching personal data in the system by design, we are introducing the pay-per-use philosophy to the market. At the same time, advertisers receive an opportunity to create ad campaigns based on anonymised data connected to real people.

Risk-free

Providing decentralised data storage hosted on the servers of telcos whose subscribers are also myGaru users, we exclude cross-board data transfers on the one hand and provide cross-regional legal compliance for data on the other hand. The end-to-end ecosystem provides exceptional protection against leakage of advertiser client databases, as well as unprecedented opportunities for brand safety.

Analyst marketplace

By acting on the Open Environment principle, we are deliberately moving the analytics component into a separate element of the ecosystem by creating the Analyst Marketplace. Data analysts, telcos, ad agencies and brands by themselves receive access to creating their analytical tools. These tools can be used for their own purposes as well as to market them within the myGaru ecosystem. This will help liberalise the market and unleash the true potential of data.

We believe this set of solutions offers an All-in-One tool and will add simplicity and transparency to the digital advertising market. In our vision of market redesign, we followed the principle of an Operating System equally available to every market participant, with an individual in the driver’s seat.