An Interview With Richy Glassberg, CEO of Safeguard Privacy

The growing number of new state laws in the United States paired with existing laws in Europe via the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) means not only that every scaled user of data needs to be more than conscious of the new laws, but actually needs to have a process in place to manage compliance with those laws. For marketers and media owners, this should be viewed as a particularly important issue given the degree to which the industry is powered by data.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t always get the attention it deserves – or worse, these issues get derided as “boring” (as one speaker at this year’s IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) annual leadership conference said on stage, to much derision). However, related issues will only become more important as marketers look to use a wider array of data in their media activations, especially after third-party cookies effectively go away in the coming years.

Richy Glassberg has been around digital advertising longer than almost anyone. He co-founded the IAB in 1996, around the same time he was the first head of sales for CNN.com. With subsequent roles crossing digital media and television, start-ups, and established companies, he’s now the co-founder of a company called Safeguard, which was built to help marketers and media owners manage their data privacy compliance across multiple jurisdictions and laws in an automated way.

I thought he’d have a great perspective on all of these issues, and interviewed him recently via email to explore further.

Is privacy boring?

Absolutely. Reading a privacy policy is boring. Writing one is worse. Reading a privacy law to figure out what you need to do is not just boring; it’s frustrating, and lawyers are expensive. That’s exactly why I started a business to make privacy easier.

Privacy is a hidden layered issue. Most of us don’t even understand the “privacy implications” inherent in all the goods and services we use in our daily lives.

I want to be able to type into a map, and I want them to know where I usually go or don’t go in order to give me great directions and divert me away from traffic. I want to log into my banking app knowing there’s a tremendous amount of security without having to remember who my kindergarten teacher was or my first pet’s name.

There is a large difference between the value exchange from a service we use and from a news site or an entertainment site or a social media app. Your expectations on what data you share and how it is used.

What I don’t want is for those apps or services to take my data and sell it to someone else or use it for purposes that I’m not aware of. I don’t want to have a restaurant review site sell my location data to advertisers so they can target me with unrelated ads I’m not interested in. I don’t want to buy something in a store or online and then see ads for it for the next 30 days, especially if it’s a sensitive purchase.

Is privacy boring? Yes. Is privacy more important to all of us than we realize? Absolutely.

Why should marketers care more about data privacy than they presently do?

First, as Apple demonstrates, privacy sells. Second, the lack of privacy hurts brand image. When an advertisement knows too much about the consumer, that consumer turns away. And finally, you do not want to be in the press on the wrong side of a lawsuit by a State Attorney General.

Privacy is just as important an issue as brand safety or anything else a marketer needs to worry about. A recent eMarketer report found that 8 in 10 consumers support a federal privacy law. IAPP and KPMG found that almost 93% of organizations indicated privacy is a top-10 organizational risk. If privacy is not as important as brand safety, I don’t know what is.

Do you agree with the premise that privacy laws are effectively trying to say: “Dear marketer or media company: if you can’t persuade a consumer to part with their data, you probably don’t deserve it.”?

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