In the final installment for our “Debunking Myths in Location Data” series, we tackle transparency and privacy.

Myth: Reputable publishers don’t share their data with ad tech vendors.
Publishers are much better off using their location data themselves to drive revenues for their own business(es). Why would they share it with a vendor who is going to build a business on their data?

Truth: Most publishers do use their own data for their own business purposes, but many also choose to license their data to ad tech companies as a second monetization stream. The app world is hyper-competitive, and for most businesses, any additional revenue is helpful.

In Gravy’s case, we also deliver location-based behavioral insights to the aggregators and publishers that work with us for a better understanding of their own app users.

Myth: Location data vendors just aren’t trustworthy.

Truth: While there may be a few bad players, the majority of location data providers, including Gravy Analytics, put a lot of effort into thinking about how location data is used, and whether or not we would be comfortable with our own data being used in the analyses our data supports.

Myth: New regulations like GDPR and CCPA make it impossible to use location data.
The arrival of GDPR forced companies to stop using and selling location data in Europe. The same thing is going to happen in the U.S. with California’s pending legislation, CCPA.

Truth: Not exactly. It’s true that some companies, unprepared for the privacy-compliant requirements of GDPR, chose to opt-out of doing business under the new regulations. But many others prepared in advance for this legislation, redeveloping their processes and continued on with business as usual. California’s CCPA, which places similar protections on consumer privacy in the U.S., is scheduled to go into effect in 2020. This timeline provides businesses, including Gravy, ample time to enhance data collection and management practices to meet these new requirements.

Read more about our stance on data privacy here.