Martin T. Tully was recently quoted in the Digiday article “Future of TV Briefing: Connected TV has a consent management challenge.” The article addresses challenges associated with managing privacy consent on connected TVs.
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To illustrate what makes managing consent on CTV unique, consider two people streaming a show together. Let’s say these people live in California where the California Consumer Privacy Act gives residents the option to request that companies not sell their personal information by sharing it with other companies for purposes such as targeting them with ads. Now let’s say one of the two people — let’s call them Taylor — has opted out from a given streaming service selling their information. However, the two people are watching a show on that streaming service using the account of the other person who has not opted out — let’s call them Alex. Theoretically, the streaming service is only collecting and potentially selling Alex’s information. But here’s the big but: That information can include information, like their IP address, that can be associated with everyone who lives in the household, such as Taylor. It’s a windy road, but in effect, the company is collecting and potentially sharing Taylor’s information despite Taylor opting out.
“When a device is used by multiple parties, that leaves the company open to the argument that any individual can come forward and say they didn’t consent to this use,” said Dominique Shelton Leipzig, partner and co-chair of the ad tech privacy and data management practice at law firm Perkins Coie.
To be fair, a company could argue that Alex had not opted out and the pair were using Alex’s account, so the company was not collecting Taylor’s personal information. But the household-level aspect means that the argument is not clear-cut and the company would still be running the risk of running afoul of privacy regulators.
“When in doubt, opt out. That’s the safer thing to do,” said Martin Tully, partner at law firm Redgrave.
Read the full Digiday article here.