Leading up to our US Publisher Forum in Memphis AdMonsters will be asking some of the speakers a few questions on their respective topics. Paul Geller will be presenting “Privacy, Consumer Protection for Global Ad Ops” at the Publisher Forum. Paul is the Senior Vice President for Information Products at Grooveshark.com. At Grooveshark.com, squeezing pennies out of ad serving is just one of the challenges that the on-demand music streaming site meets and defeats everyday. We asked Paul a few questions about consumer privacy and self-regulation.
Q: Can you briefly describe what you do in your current role?
As Sr.VP of Information Products at Grooveshark.com I lead a team of developers in building data mining applications based on the largest valid dataset of music consumption information in the world. I oversee our vendor relationships and the technical aspects of ad operations. Part of my job includes staying up to date on the latest and greatest privacy and consumer protection actions taking place in the U.S. and abroad.
Q: Not to take too much from your upcoming presentation, can you talk a bit about your thoughts on industry self-regulation proposed by the DAA (adboutads.info). Do you think self-regulation is a viable option?
Given the right conditions self-regulation is a viable option. Those conditions are not currently present.
Q: How critical is Online Behavioral Advertising (OBA) to revenue?
I don’t think it is critical at all. It’s great and it makes a real difference for advertisers and agencies but from an ad operations standpoint I don’t think “critical” is the word I would choose.
Q: If you were able to gather the Grooveshark audience in a room and talk to them about consumer privacy and advertising what’s one important takeaway you’d want to get across?
In developing personalized and semantic applications a certain loss of privacy is necessary. This loss in privacy does not necessarily have to translate to a loss of security.
Q: Your session will talk about how ad operations will need understand privacy regulation, not just in the US, but globally. For those that can not attend the session in person (or for those who want to study ahead) what are some good online resources that operations can use as reference?
The American Bar Association Section on Anti-Trust Law oversees consumer protection and thus questions of privacy. If you don’t mind receiving 5+ emails a day from them then sign up for a mailing list or two.
I’ll include more resources at the end of my presentation.
Q: What Elvis song reminds you most of Ad Operations?
In The Ghetto