“Boltive signifies an expansion of our services so clients can avoid malware, offensive content, heavy ads and now privacy-violating ads,” said Boltive CEO Dan Frechtling, who joined the company in May 2021. ”As users request blocking of more forms of malicious and offensive ads, our Ad Lightning software now protects 100 billion impressions per month. As digital companies face greater data protection obligations in 2022 and 2023, Privacy Guard helps resolve trade-offs between user addressability and user privacy.”
Boltive will continue to enhance its flagship Ad Lightning product and apply its patented technology to help brands, publishers and platforms navigate challenges around ad quality, privacy, consent, and effectiveness of third party identity solutions.
Individuals and governments have become less tolerant of invasive media--ads that are malicious, offensive, and prying. We’ve documented a 17% quarter-over-quarter increase in unique threats from bad actors. The scope of ad safety and quality continues to broaden as certain advertisers push limits around unsavory and shady images and messaging. With Ad Lightning software, publishers are able to take back control of their site experiences and protect visitors.
Prying ads that skim personal data are also of chief concern. According to an August KPMG survey, 86% of consumers feel a growing concern about data privacy--with more concerned about their data being sold than hacked. Further, 62% of business leaders say their companies should do more to protect customer data, and 29% say their companies sometimes use unethical means to collect private data.
Gartner estimates 75% of the world's population will be under privacy regulations in 2023. The IAPP is tracking 31 US state privacy laws and bills, and 94% require opt-out or opt-in rights to use of personal information.
These shifts in Web regulations coincide with shifts in technologies. The deprecation of third party cookies that began with Safari and will culminate with Chrome in 2023 will scramble the Web’s advertising architecture--with privacy and addressability implications.
As both legal and technical Web standards change, brands, platforms and publishers will be more accountable for consumer protection. Privacy Guard builds on Ad Lightning’s patented synthetic audience technology to help companies determine if their websites and ads respect data sharing requirements. Boltive teamed up with the co-author of CCPA and CPRA and consulted with top legal experts to develop the software. Imagine a financial audit, but for data sharing compliance.
“With Privacy Guard, Boltive enables visibility that was never before possible into data sharing violations,” said Rick Arney, co-author of CPRA and CCPA. “This capability supports adherence to data privacy principles embedded in CPRA, CCPA, and other global regulations covering personal information.”
Currently in Beta testing, Privacy Guard’s is already showing:
· For brands. 17% of network requests have consent failures, meaning partners aren’t honoring consent strings from Consent Management Platforms (CMPs) and consumers may be tracked and followed by ads they attempt to avoid.
· For publishers, 18% of consent strings are being misread, resulting in lost revenue for highly valuable audience members
· Overall: 53 programmatic advertising partners aren’t properly passing consent at any given time
Boltive is now offering free scans to qualified brands and publishers through early access so they can confirm they comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and the upcoming California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA). Privacy Guard will automatically check for failed privacy consent, unlawful data sharing and unauthorized data collectors. It runs independently, requiring no integration or installation.
About Boltive
Boltive secures brands, publishers and platforms against invasive media through two products, Ad Lightning and Privacy Guard. Since 2016 the company has safeguarded audiences from malicious, offensive and now privacy-violating ads. Boltive works with many of the top 100 Comscore publishers and now protects over 100 billion impressions globally per month. Boltive regularly earns a Net Promoter Score (NPS) in the top 1% of software companies with the digital media industry’s most comprehensive ad intelligence platform. In a media environment characterized by new regulations and cookieless technologies, Boltive products bring transparency and control to ad quality and privacy.
For media inquiries, contact:
Robin Chwatko for Boltive: robin@rg-pr.com/646.729.7994