Anger at MCN over ID slip-up

ADVERTISING sales company MCN has been forced into an embarrassing backdown.

ADVERTISING sales company MCN has been forced into an embarrassing backdown, after key client Telstra said MCN’s most senior digital sales executive did not understand the product he was selling, or how it uses Telstra’s customer data.

Telstra said MCN’s national digital sales director made several “errors” when he told The Australian that 50 to 60 per cent of MCN’s online audience, or 8.5 million people had been associated with “Telstra IDs” or IP addresses. MCN sells advertising on all of Telstra’s websites, including nrl.com.au and afl.com.au, and all of Foxtel’s websites. Telstra owns 50 per cent of Foxtel.

The company said Nick Young’s assertion that demographic information associated with these individuals had been verified by Telstra’s 100-point identification checks, and was therefore “99.9 per cent accurate” was wrong.

“Information derived from documentary ID verification is not used in this product,” a Telstra spokesman said in response to emailed questions from Media last week. “It doesn’t happen, and none of our representations on this product says that it does.”

Telstra failed to explain why its recently updated privacy policy specifically discloses that it retains information from 100-point identity checks, that it may use the data to customise advertising, and that it “may continue after you cease acquiring any products or services from us”.

The spokesman also claimed the “Telstra IDs” upon which Mr Young said MCN’s ID Targeting platform is based, “don’t exist”.

“MCN’s original description of this product to the media contained a number of inaccu­racies,” Telstra director digital media and content Adam Good said. “They have since corrected these errors.”

An MCN spokeswoman said Mr Young’s statement about the 100-point identification data was “based on a misunderstanding on Nick’s part (regarding) the nature of the underlying dataset from which Telstra provides ­aggregated demographic data to MCN”.

She claimed MCN had not misrepresented the product to advertisers. “MCN has been clear in market that our data is based on aggregated demographic data at a minimum at postcode level and contains no personal information which would allow individuals to be identified.”

Despite that, senior media buyers have not only gained the impression that Telstra IDs exist, but that the MCN ID Targeting platform relies on information from the Telstra IDs for its accuracy. “It’s based on the Telstra IDs,” Maxus national digital and trading director Ricky Chanana told Media when MCN Insights, which uses MCN’s ID Targeting data platform, was announced.