Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica and Vodafone Group will form a joint venture for creating digital marketing technology platform in Europe that could benefit consumers, advertisers and publishers.
The European Commission has approved the creation of the entity based in Belgium. Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica and Vodafone will take 25 percent stakes in the joint venture.
The joint venture is the outcome of a project launched by Vodafone and run by the four operators to develop a technological solution for digital advertising in Europe. The platform has been designed from the outset to be compliant with European data protection policy such as GDPR and the ePrivacy directive. The partners have already initiated a trial in Germany. They will conduct trials in France and Spain to develop the platform.
The trial platform requires affirmative opt-in consent by the consumer to activate communications from brands via publishers. The data that is shared is a pseudo-anonymous digital token that cannot be reverse-engineered. Consumers are free to opt in or deny consent with a single click, as well as revoke any other consents given either on the brand’s or publisher’s website, or via a dedicated, easily accessible privacy portal.
The platform is specifically designed to offer consumers a step change in the control, transparency and protection of their data, which is currently collected, distributed and stored at scale by major, non-European players.
The trial run by Vodafone last year tested the platform on Vodafone’s and Deutsche Telekom’s networks in Germany, together with online publishers and advertisers. This enabled the operators to evaluate the platform’s ease-of-use in providing consumers with greater control and transparency over how brands communicate with them.
