What Is De-Identification?

Here's the one topic that comes up most often during conversations we've had with potential data partners so far: PRIVACY.

It's a very big deal these days, to our data partners and to us. Companies who have data about their customers — whether they’re wineries or internet-driven businesses or app developers — worked very hard to get it, and they're extraordinarily protective about it.

As they should be.

So why would they share it with us?

Because they aren't giving us things like names, email addresses, or any other personal information that can identify specific consumers. They aren't giving it to us, nor do we want it.

Yes, we do group "cohorts" (or clusters of consumers) based on unique internal device IDs. But we do not know that "This device belongs to Jane Smith or John Doe."

That process is called de-identification. That means we know the ID, but we do not know the individual person behind the ID.

It keeps the data objective, anonymous, and empirical. Which is our goal.