WPP claims to track “almost 100%” of UK individuals internet activity
British advertising giant WPP has weighed into the ongoing debate over online privacy with a database which, it claims, tracks “almost 100%” of the UK population online.
Xaxis has been made possible by collating visitor data from its advertising clients, online advertisers and even people on the High Street logging what people are purchasing.
Thus far the system has built up digital profiles of 500m people worldwide, including virtually every online resident in the UK, US and Australia.
WPP believe that their trove of information will help bump up advertising rates as greater precision means adverts can be targeted at specific individuals.
Asserting that the data has been “anonymised”, Xaxis chief executive Brian Lesser, said: “The internet is an advertising-supported medium, and much of the web is free because advertisers want to put messages in front of people. We are supporting the broader internet economy by improving the targeting of ads, while also playing by the strictest privacy rules."
Advertisers have backed a series of voluntary measures to quell privacy concerns in recent years, including “do not track” modes in new browsers and options for people to specify what data can be collected from them.