Acxiom's US Online Advertising Privacy Policy
This privacy policy covers Acxiom’s online advertising products - which enables the delivery of the most relevant offers to the right consumers while protecting their privacy and offering consumers a choice about participating in such activities.
Anonymous Online Advertising to Consumers
We may set an anonymous Acxiom third party cookie on your browser to enable online advertising when you do a number of things online.
ADVERTISER SPECIFIC COOKIES: When you visit a website that is an Acxiom online advertising client we may set an anonymous cookie for that advertiser based on what pages you have visited on that site. This cookie will be used by only that advertiser to target messages and ads to you when you visit other sites.
ACXIOM THIRD PARTY COOKIES: When you visit a website that is an Acxiom online advertising partner and you register or sign up, providing personally identifiable information, such as your name, mailing address or email address, this information may be sent to Acxiom so we can set an anonymous Acxiom third party cookie on your browser. When this cookie is set, all information that would make it personally identifiable is removed.
If Acxiom has any demographic, interest or lifestyle information about you, we will associate this data with the anonymous Acxiom third party cookie. We will periodically refresh this information to assure it remains current. To learn more about Acxiom’s demographic, interest and lifestyle information, go to Acxiom’s U.S. Products Privacy Policy.
HOW THE ACXIOM THIRD PARTY COOKIE IS USED: There are three instances where the Acxiom third party cookie is used.
- Personalize your experience on an advertiser’s website: The anonymous Acxiom third party cookie associated with demographic, interest and lifestyle data allows an Acxiom online advertising client to personalize the content of their website based on the Acxiom data.
- Allow advertisers to better target their ads: The anonymous Acxiom third party cookie associated with demographic, interest and lifestyle data allows an Acxiom online advertising client to better target their ads based on the Acxiom data when displayed on websites owned by others.
- Allow advertisers to use Acxiom data and other third party data to personalize their site and/or target their ads: In some instances the anonymous Acxiom third party cookie associated with demographic, interest and lifestyle data is synced an Acxiom partner’s anonymous third party cookie which allows an advertiser to use the combined information from Acxiom and our partner to personalize their own site or better target their ads when displayed on websites owned by others. These other anonymous third party cookies may include behavioral data related to your web surfing.
Your Choices and How to Contact Us
You may opt-out of advertisers using the Acxiom online cookie by clicking here. This places an opt-out cookie on your computer to indicate to Acxiom that you do not want to participate on our online advertising products. If you ever delete the "opt-out cookie" from your browser, buy a new computer, or change Web browsers, you will need to perform the opt-out task again. It's only when the "opt-out" cookie is present on your browser that we know you have decided not to participate in Acxiom’s online advertising products. You may set your computer’s Internet browser settings so you will be notified when you receive any third party cookie, which includes Acxiom online advertising cookies, and be given the choice to block the cookie. In addition, there are also other controls within certain browsers or available through third parties that enables more extensive blocking of cookies. Some new browsers have a ‘do-not-track’ feature. When this feature is turned on, Acxiom treats this as if you had opted out of our online advertising products. For more information about cookies, visit How Cookies Work.
If you have any questions about Acxiom’s online advertising privacy policy, e-mail us at privacy@acxiom.com or call our Consumer Advocate line at 1-877-774-2094.
Compliance with the Digital Advertising Alliance
Acxiom is a member of the Digital Advertising Alliance and supports their transparency and choice program for online behavioral advertising, the AboutAds.info ICON. To learn more about this program click here.
In accordance with the DAA guidelines, we will not knowingly use or disclose data for online advertising purposes on anyone under the age of 13. In addition, we will obtain consent before collecting or using financial account numbers, Social Security numbers, pharmaceutical prescriptions or medical records related to a specific individual for online advertising purposes.
Other Ways Acxiom Protects Consumer Interests
Anonymous Acxiom third party cookies expire within 365 days. However, if you revisit the pages that initially launched the cookie, the 365 day timeframe may restart.
No personally identifiable information is associated with anonymous Acxiom third party cookies.
To support Acxiom’s online advertising products, we may utilize the technology of third party service providers. We may utilize their technology platforms to record information related to the serving of advertisements. When ad are shown to consumers, our partner platform may collect information such as browser type, ad served, date, time, and site where the ad was served. Acxiom uses this information to understand the effectiveness of adverting campaigns. The information collected and used to understand campaign effectiveness cannot be used to identify anyone personally.
Service providers who assist Acxiom with storage, analysis, or other services, may have access to data Acxiom uses in our online advertising products.. All service providers are subject to confidentiality restrictions, and are not authorized to utilize the information in any way other than what is required to provide their services to Acxiom.
Our contracts require that our online advertising clients and our online advertising partners provide appropriate disclosures in their privacy policies about how and when third party cookies are set and information about how to block, disable or delete third party cookies, which block or end your participation in Acxiom’s online advertising products.
Using Cookies and Web Technology – How We Make It Happen
We use non-personally identifiable means, including "pixel tags" and "cookies", to collect and store data. We do not use flash cookies. We use “cookie syncing” to enable the matching of anonymous data stored in cookies that have been set by our partners.
Cookies are small text files that contain a string of characters and uniquely identify a browser. They are sent to a computer by Web site operators or third parties. Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies. You may, however, be able to change your browser settings to cause your browser to refuse third-party cookies or to indicate when a third-party cookie is being sent. Check your browser's "Help" files to learn more about handling cookies on your browser.
Pixel tags are small strings of code that provide a method for delivering a graphic image on a Web page or other document. Pixel tags allow the operator of the Web page or other document, or a third party who serves the pixel tag, to set, read, and modify cookies on, and to transfer other data to, the browser used to view the Web page or other document. Pixel tags may also be used to obtain information about the computer being used to view that Web page or other document. The entity that sends the tag can view the IP address of the computer that the tag is sent to, the time it was sent, the user's operating system and browser type, and similar information.
Cookie Synching refers to the process of mapping anonymous cookie IDs from one system to another. The systems across which the cookie IDs are mapped could be advertiser sites, advertising networks, advertising exchanges and data providers. Cookie-synching enables the integration of data across companies to enable the delivery of relevant advertising or content. Because cookies are domain specific, a cookie set by one domain (acxiom.com) cannot be read by a server from another domain (acmepartner.com), enabling relevant advertising across domains is addressed by a controlled and non-personally identifiable method called cookie synchronization, or cookie synching for short.
Learn More
To learn how to manage your browser based settings and cookies, please visit:
Google Chrome
Mozilla Firefox
Microsoft Internet Explorer
Safari
Security
Acxiom maintains security procedures designed to keep information we own, license and process from being accessed by any unauthorized person or business. We use a variety of multi-level security systems to control access to our services and information products. All users at client locations, as well as all Acxiom associates, must have the appropriate access codes and be authorized to access certain data and applications.
Acxiom conducts risk assessments and regular audits on our internal and external information systems to assess our ability to maintain the integrity of client and Acxiom data. Our enterprise security operations center maintains real-time monitoring for information system vulnerabilities and unauthorized access attempts into our internal systems. We also maintain physical security for our facilities and limit access to certain critical areas of our business.
We take reasonable precautions to ensure that our security procedures are adequate for the protection of our computer systems and data, but this does not eliminate the possibility that our security will be breached. If a security breach causes Acxiom leadership to believe individual consumers are at actual risk for identity theft or other fraudulent activities that may cause substantial harm or inconvenience to consumers or if such breach otherwise requires public notification, Acxiom will post a security alert notice on our website (www.acxiom.com) that will provide relevant information for consumers and Acxiom clients to consider to protect against fraudulent and other harmful actions that may result from the unauthorized access.
Other Important Information
If we decide to change our online privacy policy in a material way, we will post a notification highlighting those changes on this website so users can become aware of the changes.
In the event Acxiom is purchased, data collected by Acxiom online advertising will be one of the transferred assets.
Effective Date: October 23, 2012