As publishers, have we made a Faustian bargain, exchanging revenue for our readers' security & privacy? How can we shift online advertising (in particular programmatic) to be more compatible with user privacy in the era of the GDPR and the additional privacy laws undoubtedly coming?

1. #NoStalking:
Just Show Me Ads
John Eckman
@jeckman
WordCamp for Publishers 2019
Columbus, OH

2. What dystopian world do
we live in where multiple
times per day we have to
validate we are not
robots while all our
online activities are
tracked by automated
processes, i.e., robots in
the cloud?
https://twitter.com/MarciRobin/status/998030243981033472
John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcpub

3. John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcpub
Privacy, security, and
transparencyPhoto by Matthew Henry on Unsplash
https://unsplash.com/photos/fPxOowbR6ls
John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcpub

4. “Journalists are people
who scribble stories on
the backs of
advertisements.”*
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Wanamaker,_Citizen,_by_John_Massey_Rhind_-_IMG_6686.JPG
*Source needed - can’t verify he said this
John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcpub

5. John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcpub

6. “I know half the money I spend on
advertising is wasted; the trouble
is I don’t know which half.”
https://explorepahistory.com/displayimage.php?imgId=1-2-122C
Though he may not have actually been the first to say
this either. See:
https://medium.com/@dsearls/rethinking-john-
wanamaker-3f9cfac3ea03
John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcpub

7. https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-the-nielsen-tv-ratings-work-and-what-could-replac-5636210
John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcpub

8. Advent of the Web
https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web/short-history-web
John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcpub

9. “One day in June 1994, Lou Montulli sat down at his
keyboard to fix one of the biggest problems facing the
fledgling World Wide Web -- and, as so often happens in
the world of technology, he created another one. . . .
The solution called for each Web site's computer to place
a small file on each visitor's machine that would track
what the visitor's computer did at that site. . . . It was a
turning point in the history of computing: at a stroke,
cookies changed the Web from a place of
discontinuous visits into a rich environment in which to
shop, to play . . . Cookies fundamentally altered the
nature of surfing the Web from being a relatively
anonymous activity, like wandering the streets of a large
city, to the kind of environment where records of one's
transactions, movements and even desires could be
stored, sorted, mined and sold.” - John Schwartz
http://www.facesofopensource.com/lou-montulli/
John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcpub
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/04/business/giving-web-a-memory-cost-its-users-privacy.htm

10. https://go.feroot.com/user-security-and-privacy-report
John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcpub

11. D O N OT T R AC K ( D N T )
https://www.eff.org/issues/do-not-track
John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcpub

12. D O N OT T R AC K ( D N T ) https://allaboutdnt.com/
John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcpub

13. John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcpub

14. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/j5zk8y/why-your-ad-blocker-doesnt-block-those-please-turn-off-your-ad-blocker-popups
John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcpub

15. We’ve Traded our
Readers’ Privacy &
Security for Ad Tech
https://www.faust.com/legend/pact-with-the-devil/
John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcpub

16. Advertising
!=
AdTech
https://www.froelichundkaufmann.de/kulturgeschichte/lexikon-der-sprichwoertlichen-redensarten.html
John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcpub

17. “Not everything that can be
counted counts, and not everything
that counts can be counted”
- William Bruce Cameron
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/26/everything-counts-einstein/
John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcpub

18. https://blogs.harvard.edu/vrm/2016/05/11/why-a-nostalking-deal-is-good-for-publishers/
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Docsearls.jpg John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcpub

19. “First, we're wiping all advertising off
the Linux Journal site and starting
with a clean slate. . . . Second, if we ever
go back to running ads, they won't be
of the spying kind generally called
‘adtech.' I have been an enemy of
adtech from its start, and for years
have led in the movement to kill it.”
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Docsearls.jpg
https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/lets-talk-advertising
John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcpub

21. So, What Can a Publisher Do?
• Diversify revenue & build direct relationships: Donations, Membership,
Subscription, Paywalls, Events, Ecommerce
• Higher value relationships w/ fewer advertisers. More direct, less programmatic
• Target ads based on context & “zero party” data
• Engage with organizations like The Media Trust or Feroot to monitor for malware
and ads that violate policies for data gathering
• Support industry-wide efforts to reform
John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcpub

22. Further Reading

23. Further reading
• https://make.wordpress.org/core/2019/08/07/feature-plugin-discussion-a-consent-
and-logging-mechanism-for-user-privacy/
• http://blogs.harvard.edu/doc/2015/09/24/the-adblock-war-series/
• https://medium.com/@dsearls/separating-advertisings-wheat-and-chaff-47858adfcb20
• https://www.cio.com/article/3336063/the-importance-of-preserving-user-privacy-with-
a-prudent-approach-to-targeted-advertising.html
• https://crcs.seas.harvard.edu/privacy-security-targeted-advertising
• https://medium.com/s/out-of-ink/the-shameful-state-of-online-
advertising-4b0e6021570e
John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcpub

24. https://10up.com/about/ https://10up.com/careers/
John Eckman • @jeckman • #wcpub
Q&A