In light of the third-party cookie’s demise – when it comes, the return of ‘Context is King’ presents great opportunity for publishers due to the unique audience data from the rich and unique communities they serve. However, this is an opportunity that is seriously threatened by what we refer to as unlicensed data extraction.

What could happen?

Unlicensed data extraction is the act of extracting and exporting data from publisher websites without the publisher’s permission and very often without their knowledge. Where this tends to play out is when third parties – for example an ad exchange, DSP, SSP or data aggregator – takes this data from the publisher with no form of value-exchange.

There are many types of data at risk of extraction – from consumer identifiers like User IDs, through to publisher IP in the form of content metadata – with third parties obtaining these in many different ways, such as through cookies and pixels being dropped on sites, collecting and mapping data points from advertising bid requests, or more blatantly from bots sent to scrape pages for their content.

Data extraction is bad news for publishers. The data value created through your close relationships with readers will be used to fuel the growth of other organisations. And, as if that’s not enough, you will most likely find yourself competing with these organisations for advertiser spend, ultimately seeing your data valued way below what it would be worth if it was fully in your control.

Taking back control

There are three steps you should take to ensure the value you create from your data is retained with your business

1. Make control a strategic imperative

Publishers must reset how they think about digital advertising – with future focus being on the simple operating principle of being in unilateral control of your supply chain. This will ensure intermediaries and third-parties are not able to dictate terms of trade when it comes to your data assets. Where removing all ad tech code from your page and turning off open market programmatic overnight will likely cause a drop in revenue, a more pragmatic path is one of iterative change which also protects revenue

2. Invest in publisher technology

Seek out technology that is designed to help you a) take control of your digital business and b) retain as much value as possible within your organisation. While trusted publisher tech is incredibly helpful as a vehicle for change and will inevitably have immediate impact, it’s important to remember it will only reach its full potential when deployed in line with the strategic shift as described above.

3. Activate practical measures today

Before putting in place longer term protections, there are a number of tactics that premium publishers can deploy today in order to retain an upper hand in data conversations with partners. These include, but are not limited to:

• auditing and, where necessary, removing tags from third-party script on your pages
• removing data points from bid requests that don’t return revenue, while retaining those that do
• auditing the consent permissions you have with vendors and remove permissions for those you don’t have direct relationships with
• blocking user agents (such as crawlers) from accessing your pages, with communications to non-permissioned vendors
• opting out of intermediaries’ multi-publisher packages that can often act as an activation channel for unlicensed data

While many of these steps – both strategic and tactical – will require a level of technical thinking, a simple starting block is to be vocal and clear in your expectations of ad partners. Ask them what measures they have in place to ensure the data used in transactions isn’t made available to others through their platform. Make sure your data gain doesn't turn into data pain.

For more on the topic of data extraction, please see The Ozone Project’s full white paper available here.