SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Could a new technology designed to make data collaboration easier actually wind up creating even more fragmentation problems?

Travis Clinger thinks so, and he wants to see a solution before things get out of control.

In this video interview with Joanna O’Connell at Beet Retreat, Clinger, SVP, Activations and Addressability, LiveRamp, talks about the emerging category of data “clean rooms”.

Scaling clean

Clean rooms allow companies to use and share data in a controlled and secure environment, ensuring that sensitive information is protected and that the privacy of consumers is not violated.

An IAB survey found a growing number of companies adopting the tools.

But O’Connell said that Beet Retreat had heard concern.

“We had an agency rep on the panel talking about the fact that it’s hard to scale out a team to have relationships with multiple clean room providers because they can’t hire enough data scientists,” she said.

Out of the bunker

“I definitely sympathize with the agencies,” Clinger said. “You don’t want to have a staff that knows how to work 20 clean rooms. That’s going to be really expensive.

“Just like there’s not going to be one ID, it’s not going be one clean room.”

Although the software is designed to allow businesses to layer and derive insight from their data, a process that is inherently about connectivity and collaboration, Clinger is calling for “interoperability” between the clean room vendors themselves.

“If we put all of our data in a bunker and you can’t use the data, what’s the point of putting it in the bunker?,” he asks.

“‘Interoperability’ means that anything you put in a clean room can be matched on an ID of your choosing. You can pull your data out, you have control of it, you have privacy around it.”

Don’t wait

Clinger is keenly watching IAB efforts to develop common clean room standards.

But he urged Beet Retreat attendees to start bringing about that interoperability now.

“We shouldn’t wait for the standards. I think we’ve learned this industry moves so fast, the standards come after the solutions and they add to the solutions. If you wait to build the solutions for the standards, it’s never going to work.

“The way we move things forward is we commit to doing it,” he told the room.

“Every publisher in here could commit to working with one of the ID solutions so we can move this room, test it out, see how it works. Every marketer could commit to buying it.”

You’re watching coverage of Beet Retreat San Juan 2023, presented by LiveRamp, Madhive, Magnite, Paramount, T-Mobile Advertising Solutions and VideoAmp. For more videos from the Beet Retreat, please visit this page.

By Robert Andrews on @robertandrews