Beyond World Wide Privacy Regulations

Privacy First

With the new European directives, GDPR and ePrivacy, digital marketers need to master privacy-first marketing.

What is privacy first approach? 

The privacy first approach allows marketers to access the data they need to make the right decisions while respecting users' personal rights throughout the process. This is a step forward for data management that ensures the privacy, security and ownership of users of any kind of service.

Let's take a look back a few years...

Over the last few years, digital marketing has evolved hand in hand with the Internet and has adapted to the needs of campaigns and strategies. In this process, the activity has been able to take place almost without specific laws and regulations and has left the protection of users up in the air. This scenario has long made it easy for companies to reach people easily and for their data to be accessed with almost no restrictions to achieve their goals.

But it is only now that a shift has taken place and user privacy has become a priority as governments and legislative bodies have moved in this direction and worked to establish new regulations to control and regulate the use of data for digital marketing. 

These are the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and ePrivacy. Thanks to these, users have much more control over their own data, decide what information they give to third parties and are even empowered to specifically request that companies delete their data if they hold it. 

So, given these circumstances, these new laws have had their particular consequences on the Internet, hence the birth of privacy first. It is because of this context that privacy-first analytics solutions are becoming more prominent, as they remove cookies from their equation. Privacy and cookies are not compatible. 

Are Cookies an invasion of privacy?

We solve the mystery, cookies (these data files with which an action is going to be carried out on the user) are far from what we consider private, anonymous... Why? Because this cookie is going to measure everything the user does on the websites they visit, creating an ID (let's see it as a DNI that is saved in the file) at the time the cookie is implanted in the terminal they use and it stores information on everything the user visits. Expanded explanation about how cookies work here.

In principle, this ID is not related to the person, it does not carry their name or surname. But what does the regulation say about this? That if in the present or in the future this ID can be associated with "John Smith", then this would be a violation of privacy. So yes, it would be an invasion of our privacy.

What do we mean by this?

Privacy first, privacy first analytics... it is a way of working in marketing. It is the companies that work under their own particular privacy values. Privacy-first companies seek to replace traditional data measurement with a privacy-friendly alternative, be it a search engine or an email manager. 

Privacy-first companies are unique in that they do not put the onus of data protection on the user, they work without consent. They are designed in such a way that data protection is operational from the outset. 

The personal data they collect is minimal and, unlike the commercial model of data mining, they process data in a transparent and secure way. 

They also have other mechanisms in place to ensure trust, such as audits, accountability and verifiability. All of them consider the user as the main beneficiary and share a similar long-term strategy: to build a more private Internet. 

Privacy first analytics is where website measurement is done completely anonymously. No cookies are used and no personal data is collected. There are no persistent identifiers. Let's put on paper what we mean:

No IP tracking, no fingerprinting where you individually measure the user, no cookies. And no storage data is collected on the user's terminal or on the technology company's server. True privacy lies in not measuring people, users; it lies in measuring in a way that does not relate the user to any data generated by browsing.

And in relation to all of the above, where would we find an example of a correct use of privacy first analytics?

How does SEAL METRICS work to respect privacy and obtain analytics data? 

With Isolated Hits. We refer to measuring clicks, these clicks are not related to each other, and let us see what is happening at all times on the web, it gives us the data of each "hit" of the web separately, but that click is not associated with any person. And with _Adin parameter, the way to count as measurement data the source from which the user enters the website. In no way do we measure users.

With these data, few for some, we work the art of creating our own web analytics tool free of GDPR and ePrivacy regulations because we do not violate the privacy of the person. SEAL METRICS is a cookie-free conversion tracking tool for marketing teams who need to see all conversions by source, campaign, medium, and keyword to optimise their campaigns. 

In short, any company that is based on privacy first puts users' privacy above all else in its business and find a Google Analytics alternative.

The privacy-first Google Analytics alternative

SEAL metrics is a privacy-first Google Analytics alternative that provides data-driven insights without the need to share user data with third parties. SEAL metrics is designed for companies that need to comply with strict data privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA. It offers a range of features, such as real-time data, and an analytics dashboard. It also provides an API for developers and a range of integrations with other services. Unlike Google Analytics, SEAL metrics does not collect any personally identifiable information (PII), and it does not use cookies or trackers. Instead, it uses a unique and secure random identifier for each user, which is stored on the user’s device. This ensures that user data is kept secure and private.

How we came here and why privacy-first marketing matters

Although GDPR was not the most comprehensive privacy legislation, it became the first comprehensive privacy regulation. The laws were introduced in 2016 as the answer to numerous data security breaches, followed quickly by others regulating data protection, including California CCPA and Brazil CCPD. Essentially, these rules apply even if business operations operate outside the company's jurisdiction. If you offer goods and services to enough persons in a covered region, then you must conform to this law.

Managing cookies consent

When you provide opt-in consent for the cookie, it is critical that you monitor their consent policies. Marketers and site managers should not simply use cookie banners and have a button for accepting or refusing a cookie that does nothing. How does a consumer accept a cookie? You might find it annoying trying to set up your site's front to allow cookies that only you allow your site visitors to set. You may need to keep records for more extended periods for the data protection authority to obtain audits.

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