Evidon, Inc.
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (February 2013) |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Online advertising Display advertising Privacy Data Intelligence |
| Founded | 2009 |
| Headquarters | New York City, New York, USA |
Key people | Scott Meyer (CEO) Colin O'Malley (former CSO) Ed Kozek (CTO) |
| Products | Market intelligence Internet Privacy |
| Website | Official website |
Evidon is a New York City-based technology company that gives brands, publishers, ad networks and other businesses insight into the digital ecosystem, as well as provides tools for consumers to see what companies are tracking them and gain control over that tracking. It operates out of multiple offices, including one in London serving Europe, a San Francisco office and a headquarters in New York City.
As part of its activities Evidon also maintains and provides Ghostery, a popular tracker prevention add-on for popular internet browsers, although some sources feel that in providing it, Evidon stands in conflict between its commercial goals and the stated aims of the add-on.
Founders and financing
Evidon was founded by Scott Meyer (former CEO and President of About.com), Colin O'Malley Ed Kozek (former VP of Engineering and Product at Right Media) and Colin O'Malley (former VP of Strategic Partnerships and Programs at TRUSTe). The company is financially backed by Warburg Pincus.
Ghostery
Evidon owns and maintains Ghostery, a prominent internet privacy extension for consumers, and also provides privacy controls and transparency for more than $1 billion of display media annually that empower people to control how their information is used online.[1] Additionally, the company provides data to the Better Business Bureau and other organizations for use in monitoring the digital advertising business for self-regulatory purposes. According to Evidon, Ghostery does not collect any information which could be used to identify users or target ads specifically at individual users, and only collects data when Ghostrank is enabled.
Ghostery is not entirely without controversy. Ghostery blocks sites from gathering personal information. But it does have an opt-in feature named GhostRank that can be checked to "support" them. GhostRank takes note of ads encountered and blocked, and sends that information, though anonymously, back to advertisers so they can better formulate their ads to avoid being blocked.[2] Thus, not everyone sees Evidon's business model as conflict-free. "Evidon has a financial incentive to encourage the program's adoption and discourage alternatives like Do Not Track and cookie blocking as well as to maintain positive relationships with intrusive advertising companies", says Jonathan Mayer, a Stanford grad student and privacy advocate.[3] Tom Simonite of Technology Review explains that with the "Ghostrank" feature enabled Ghostery sends collected user data back to the vendor, who then offers it for sale to ad firms to help them improve their resistance to 'blocking'.[3]
References
- ^ Rafat Ali (2009-01-19). "Instant Ads Set the Pace on the Web". PaidContent. Retrieved 2010-03-12.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|1=(help); Unknown parameter|deadurl=ignored (|url-status=suggested) (help) - ^ Ad-Blocker Ghostery Actually Helps Advertisers, If You "Support" It
- ^ a b Simonite, Tom (2013-06-17). "A Popular Ad Blocker Also Helps the Ad Industry". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 2013-09-01.