Privacy And Clean Rooms Take Center Stage At CES – Again

By mid-December most folks are either focused on the year-end finish line or preparing to celebrate the holidays, or both.  But there is another cohort focused on CES, which kicks off on January 5th. 

In recalling previous years there was always one thing, sometimes two, that captured “the buzz” at CES.  What will it be this year?  In 2020 “clean rooms” got a lot of attention.  In prior years attention was focused on driverless cars, Virtual Reality (VR), the Internet of Things (IoT) and “smart homes”, etc.   

Because many of these “buzzed” topics are innovative, they take time to materialize – and some never materialize.

Take driverless cars for example, it is not clear how realistic they are in the near term, but a few years ago there was a huge space dedicated to demos of the technology and that generated a lot of buzz at CES. 

Clean rooms were similarly buzzy in 2020.  One could not have a conversation without the word “clean room” being dropped. 

Despite the buzz, clean rooms and other privacy tools never quite took off. That is about to change though as 2023 will be the year when these tools finally reach maturity. 

 The main reason for this prediction is the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA).  This act, extending consumer opt-out rights, is set to become operative on January 1, 2023, and enforceable later in the year.  It will put privacy is at the front of the queue of issues facing marketers in 2023 – if not already there. 

Any company that uses “x”-party data for advertising purposes will need a “privacy by default” plan.  Given the nature of this legislation, which gets the US (at least California) closer to GDPR, there is work to be done.

This new legislation closes loopholes in existing CCPA law, explicitly defines sensitive data, adds data minimization requirements, similar to GDPR, and expands private rights to take civil actions. 

And while this is only a California law, the patchwork of state-by-state activity already in motion suggests others will be vectoring in same direction.  Additionally, we are seeing the FTC flexing its legislative authority muscles which could lead to activity, and some noise, at the federal level. 

The impact on marketers will be significant.

To start, any marketer collecting data will need very clear notice statements with details of specific uses and provide consumers the ability to opt out. 

The good news here is marketers are doing this today – and probably need to tighten language to comply as the US migrates towards a GDPR-like future.

Secondly, any marketer holding zero or first party data will need a robust, real time, consent management platform to keep their opt-out list current. 

Again, these exist today – but V 2.0 needs development. Lastly marketers will need paperwork and processes in place with partners with whom they share data.  While marketers have made progress with many “usual suspects” doing this today – it is not seamless nor systemic. 

New entrants like open architected Optable are showing promise with tested workflows that deliver privacy as the default, at scale, and should become a reality in 2023.

BTW - I predict that Metaverse (perhaps more bad news than good news) and Retail Media will be the two big new buzzwords at CES this year.