Evidon, Inc.
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (February 2013) |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Online advertising Display advertising Internet privacy Market intelligence |
| Founded | 2009 |
| Headquarters | New York City, New York, USA |
Key people | Scott Meyer (CEO) Colin O'Malley (former CSO) Ed Kozek (CTO) |
| Website | Official website |
Ghostery, Inc. (formerly Evidon and The Better Advertising Project) is a software company based in New York City, United States. Formed in 2009 as Better Advertising, the company primarily develops products and services oriented towards online advertising, market intelligence, and internet privacy.
History
The company was founded as The Better Advertising Project in 2009 by Scott Meyer (former CEO and President of About.com), Ed Kozek (former VP of Engineering and Product at Right Media) and Colin O'Malley (former VP of Strategic Partnerships and Programs at TRUSTe), and financially backed by Warburg Pincus. The company's goal was to develop a platform to allow advertisers "self-regulate" their use of behavioral advertising online.[1]
In January 2011, the company re-branded as Evidon, a variation of the word "evident". Meyer argued that the previous name had made more sense in the past due to the experimental nature of its product, and that the company needed a more "clear" identity to reflect its professional operation.[2][3]
Emily Riley, former web marketing analyst for Jupiter Research and Forrester Research, was named chief operating officer of the company in January 2014.[4] In April 2014, Evidon was re-branded as Ghostery, unifying its branding with the consumer-oriented app. The company planned to increase its focus on enterprise-oriented solutions for marketing and privacy compliance.[5][6]
Products
Ghostery's main consumer product is its namesake browser extension and mobile app, Ghostery—which allows users to monitor and control how websites and behavioral advertising networks track user data. The extension was acquired by the company in 2010;[1] following the acquisition, Ghostery's functionality was augmented with the ability to anonymously send data from the extension back to the company, so it can be analyzed for use in its enterprise-oriented services.[7]
Ghostery's enterprise services, branded since April 2014 as Ghostery Enterprise, provides services for businesses needing to track and manage the effectiveness of their advertising operations (Marketing Cloud Management and Competitive Intelligence, previously branded as Evidon Labs), and provides tools for complying with self-regulatory guidelines for online privacy and behavioral advertising.[6][5]
References
- ^ a b "Behavioral Ad Regulation Startup Better Advertising Buys Tracking Tool Ghostery". paidContent. Gigaom. Retrieved 4 May 2014.
- ^ "Better Advertising Becomes Evidon; CEO Meyer Discusses New VivaKi Agreement". Ad Exchanger. Retrieved 4 May 2014.
- ^ "Web Privacy Self-Regulation Accelerates". Adweek. Retrieved 4 May 2014.
- ^ "Evidon Adds Longtime Digital Analyst Emily Riley As First COO". AdAge. Retrieved 4 May 2014.
- ^ a b "Seeing Opportunity With Data-Haunted Marketers, Evidon Changes Name to Ghostery". AdAge. Retrieved 4 May 2014.
- ^ a b "Evidon Rebrands As Ghostery, Focuses On Enterprise Tools". Ad Exchanger. Retrieved 4 May 2014.
- ^ Simonite, Tom (2013-06-17). "A Popular Ad Blocker Also Helps the Ad Industry". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved 2013-09-01.