We Want Your Great Debate Privacy Questions

As soon as I heard about the theme of this year’s IAB Leadership Meeting I immediately asked my friends at IAB to find a role for me there. I do cover big data and how marketers use it for Advertising Age, after all, so it seemed a perfect fit.

I‘ll admit, though, the chance of catching a couple spring training games the weekend before the conference piqued my interest just a tad, too.

Well, IAB came through with an exciting opportunity for me: channel your inner Candy Crowley and moderate the annual Great Debate. The privacy, self-regulatory and government beat has been an important one for me over the years covering digital advertising, and this year’s Great Debate will help advance the discussion around privacy related topics. For years, digital marketers and privacy advocates have talked at each other, usually from opposite ends of the spectrum.

In Phoenix on February 26, they’ll comingle on the same stage, and hopefully elevate the conversation to a new level. My goal as moderator is to get beyond the buzzwords and rhetoric. And — no offense to the Candy Crowleys and Jim Lehrers of the world — I hope I’m more successful than most presidential debate moderators in that mission.

Sure, I’ll come armed with some poignant questions intended to spark a lively and educational conversation. But I need your help and involvement, too.

Here’s your task: Ponder the important issues related to consumer data privacy and how marketers collect, store and use data. Think about topics like PII, anonymization, the prevalence of tracking tags, industry self-regulation, our favorite little blue icon, government intervention from legislators and the FTC, the emerging privacy services market…the list goes on and on.

Come up with the best question you can think of that will get our debate panel off their talking points and into a real discussion. Maybe it will get heated - heck, we’ll be in Arizona, right? Submit your best question by tweeting it to @IAB and including the hashtag #IABALM. We’ll sift through all of them and pluck out the cream of the crop, and you may get to ask the question yourself during the Great Debate.

I look forward to reading your questions and saying hello to you in Phoenix later this month!

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