Privacy Issues Carry Over from 2021
Last year generated a lot of trends in the privacy space, so much that we also considered ‘privacy’ to be the analytics word of the year. The calendar page has changed, but we can’t yet leave ‘privacy’ in the past, as some of those trends haven’t fully resolved as we embrace 2022.
We should all keep an eye on court cases out of Europe. Depending on how the consent case around consent management in Germany plays out, and if the Belgian DPA ultimately finds IAB Europe’s TCF2.0 framework unlawful, brands with European presence may find themselves scrambling for new consent management tools and processes.
We also want to pay attention to the rulings coming out of the various data protection authorities which are dealing in EU to US data flows. These cases may ultimately drive technical architecture changes for brands operating in Europe.
Getting Ready for Spring
Android Policy Changes
Spring will bring changes to data collection for Android’s Google Play Store. On April 26th, 2021, we saw Apple release App Tracking Transparency, a change that ultimately drove a 10 billion dollar loss to various companies in their Q3 earnings calls.
Android will be enforcing a similar policy in 2022, taking effect on April 1st, 2022. Brands with a Google Play store presence will need to evaluate and potentially modify their Android App data collection practices ahead of the deadline to remain in compliance with the Play store policies. In particular, we recommend reviewing the Disclosure and Consent requirements, which will govern what users need to know and when app developers need to prompt for consent prior to data collection.
As the restrictions to data collection will apply to both Apple and Google eco-systems, this may be a good time to reflect on the mobile marketing roadmap and determine what tactics and strategies will be leveraged going forward in light of reduced data collection for targeting across various ad networks.
Conference Season
Spring into Summer will also mark the start of conference season. We’ll likely see privacy related changes announced at the various conferences, such as Google I/O and Apple’s WorldWide Developers Conference. These announcements will help shape what organizations need to be focused on in the fall with the release of the new operating systems.
Prepping for Fall
The later half of the year will be busy. Not only will brands need to deal with whatever changes are announced from the conferences earlier in the year, but they’ll also need to be ready to act in compliance with the state law changes for California, Colorado, and Virginia going into effect in 2023.
The initial focus should be on California and Virginia. Both of these should begin enforcement on January 1st, 2023. The Virginia law is new, and the California law strengthens the existing privacy law and also creates a new bureau of government for investigation and enforcement.
Both states should have regulations posted with exact requirements toward the middle of the year, which will leave roughly 6 months to get everything in order. Due to the potentially far-reaching changes, we recommend reviewing the law text with your legal teams in advance so you can hit the ground running once the regulations are published.
Colorado is going into effect in mid-2023, but we list it here because you may be able to leverage a lot of the work done for Virginia in preparing for Colorado’s requirements. With three states now having privacy laws, it likely makes sense to have larger strategy discussions around data collection and usage to avoid entering a complex patchwork of regulations on a state-by-state level where possible.
Business as Usual?
The above reflects the big beats we know are coming in 2022, but we recognize that these won’t, by any means, be all of the changes we’ll need to be aware of. We fully expect there to be browser and operating system changes announced that enhance privacy and security. We know we’ll also likely continue to see court cases that could dramatically alter plans based on rulings. Further, based on what occurred in 2021, year-over-year comparisons are likely to be difficult for various metrics and we accept this will now be the new reality of operating in the analytics industry.
The focus on privacy isn’t going away anytime soon, and we stand ready to face the challenges that will be presented as the industry changes due to internal and external influences.
