Privacy Policy and Opt-Out

This privacy policy (the "Policy") describes the privacy practices of The Agency with respect to information it collects through third party Digital Media Properties, and on occasionally, directly from users (such as when it administers surveys described in this Policy). The Agency, Inc. ("The Agency", "we", "our", or "us") provides a technology platform for serving video advertisements through its customers' web sites, mobile applications and connected TVs and for collecting certain reporting information in relation to the advertisements it serves. When we refer to "Digital Media Properties" (or "Digital Media Property Owners"), we are referring to third party customers and web and mobile services, such as websites or mobile applications  and the online, mobile and connected TV properties that we support. By way of example, Digital Media Properties include web sites that distribute news, entertainment and sports streaming video programs. When we refer to the "The Agency Platform" we are referring to our hosted technology platform that we use to serve advertisements through the Digital Media Properties. This Policy describes how we collect, use and disclose information in connection with our operation of the The Agency Platform for Digital Media Properties.

If you'd like to opt-out from having ads tailored to you by The Agency (whether through web or mobile delivery mechanisms), please follow the instructions in the "Choices" section below.

We use the The Agency Platform to help advertisers serve video and rich media advertisements to visitors to the Digital Media Properties ("Users").  We do this in various ways.  Sometimes, we are paid by advertisers to serve ads to the Digital Media Properties.  Sometimes, we create (or collect from other companies and online or offline data platforms) interest-based inferences about Users based on the information we receive from the Digital Media Properties, and create data segments ("Data Segments") based on those inferences.  We may then provide those Data Segments (or audiences created or modelled from the information we receive) to advertisers working with or through other online and mobile platforms.  Sometimes, we integrate other services we provide (which may include Data Segments, advertising inventory, or other data and ad serving tools and services) with other online platforms and services, which may themselves have Data Segments or advertising inventory, or may engage with advertisers or consumers in other ways.  These platforms may, for instance, collect de-identified or anonymous web browsing, mobile application, or de-identified offline marketing data, and create Data Segments from that data.   . In many cases, the advertising we help facilitate allows the Digital Media Property Owners to cover the costs associated with operating the Digital Media Properties, which are often made available for free to Users. Through the limited collection and use of data as described in this Policy, The Agency delivers more effective advertising to Users – for example, by remembering when they have previously seen an advertisement so that it doesn't show the same advertisement again, or simply by helping to tailor ads in a way that is more relevant to Users.

Please note the following:

This Policy does not describe our practices with regard to information we collect through our corporate website at theagency.com. The privacy policy applicable to the theagency.com website can be found at https://www.theagency.com/privacy-policy.

Digital Media Property Owners' collection, use and disclosure of information through their Digital Media Properties is governed by their own privacy policies and practices which we do not and cannot control. You should always check the privacy policy of any Digital Media Property you visit to make sure you are comfortable with the relevant Digital Media Property Owner's privacy practices.

The Agency does not collect Personal Information regarding Users through operation of the The Agency Platform, but does collect and use certain Analytics Information relating to the advertisements it serves.  To explain the meaning of these terms Personal Information and Analytics Information:

Analytics Information.  In this Policy, we use the term "Analytics Information" to mean any information regarding, or collected during, the delivery of an advertisement to a User's device and subsequent User engagement with that advertisement.  In some cases, it may refer to additional information collected during a user's interaction with a web page, mobile application or other service.  On its own, this type of information does not enable us to determine the actual personal identity of any User, and we do not connect it with or relate it to any such User Personal Information. The types of Analytics Information we collect and receive may include information about the date and time the advertisement was displayed, how long it was displayed for, whether it was clicked on, how many times it has been displayed to the device in question and how or whether the user engaged with it, the IP address or the mobile device identifier (such as an IDFA or Android Advertising ID) of the User's device, information about the operating system, web address visited or mobile app, and certain non-identifying demographic information about Users such as their gender, approximate regional location (e.g. country and town), and age, or generic categories about users and their interests (for example, "male auto buyer").  We also may collect information regarding how the user engaged with an ad or the page on which it is displayed, including to help advertisers monitor against fraud.

Survey Information. In certain territories, Advertisers may also elect to run The Agency "Surveys" before (or instead of) their advertisements.  "The Agency Surveys" are short surveys that Users can voluntarily elect to participate in and where such survey responses may be used to create lookalike models that are not tied to a specific User.  Such survey questions are a way for advertisers to obtain information directly from Users about their interests.  Users might be asked, for instance,  "Which of the following comedy programs do you watch?" with a drop-down menu of TV shows, or "How frequently do you travel for business?" with a drop down of different options.  We may place cookies, or collect mobile device identifiers, associated with this survey information, or inferences or Data Segments we create from it.  We may use the information we collect from the The Agency Surveys in all of the ways we use the other information described in this Privacy Policy, e.g., the information collected from Digital Media Properties.

If you do not wish your survey responses to be used for creation of a lookalike segment, please simply do not respond to the survey or directly exit the survey by selecting the "Skip" button.  

We collect, use, deploy and share Analytics Information by using various technologies, including those we describe below:

Cookies.  We collect Analytics Information through the use of cookies, device identifiers and similar technologies. A cookie is a small text file containing a string of characters that is placed by an Internet server on your device.  Cookies can be either session cookies or persistent cookies, and The Agency serves both types. A session cookie is deleted from your device automatically when you close your browser. A persistent cookie remains on your device for a specified period of time and may be accessed by The Agency on subsequent visits by you to Digital Media Properties operated by our customers.

HTML5 and Locally Stored Objects.  Similar to cookies are locally stored objects, which we may also use for storing Analytics Information.  Locally stored objects, such as HTML5 Web Storage, are used for similar purposes as cookies but typically may contain a greater amount and different types of data than browser cookies.  Most current versions of common web browsers clear this locally stored data when you delete or clear your cookie cache.  To confirm whether this is the case for the browser you are using, or to learn more about how to precisely control this data storage, please consult the Help function of your browser. 

The specific types of cookies served through the The Agency Platform are described as follows:

1.  Cookies served when you receive our ads or visit a website that has partnered with The Agency
Types of cookies	Who serves them	How to refuse
Advertising cookies.  These cookies collect Analytics Information (described above) in order to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers on sites that you visit, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests.	Adometry www.adometry.com Bluekai www.bluekai.com ComScore www.comscore.com Krux www.krux.com Nielson www.nielson.com TruEffect www.trueffect.com The Agency www.theagency.com	You can opt-out of tracking by these cookies (in the middle column) through the following methods: Adometry: Opt-out available at: https://www.adometry.com/privacy-policy/ Bluekai: Opt-out available at: https://www.bluekai.com/consumers.php https://www.scorecardresearch.com/preferences.aspx (for ComScore) Krux: Opt-out available at: https://www.krux.com/privacy/consumer-choice/   Nielson: Opt-out available at:  https://www.nielsen.com/content/corporate/policy/en/cookie-policy.html TruEffect: Opt-out available at: https://www.trueffect.com/privacy-policy/ The Agency: Opt-out available at: https://theagency.com/privacy-policy-opt-out/ In addition, you can also decline cookies by changing your browser settings as described below. Alternatively, you can exercise cookie choices by visiting any of https://www.aboutads.info/choices/, https://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/ or https://youronlinechoices.com/.
2.  Cookies served when you interact with a survey served by The Agency
Advertising cookies. These cookies collect Analytics Information (described above) in order to make advertising messages more relevant to you. They perform functions like preventing the same ad from continuously reappearing, ensuring that ads are properly displayed for advertisers on sites that you visit, and in some cases selecting advertisements that are based on your interests.	GMI www.gmi.com Interpret Millward Brown www.millwardbrown.com Research Now www.researchnow.com SafeCount www.safecount.com	You can opt-out of tracking by these cookies through the following methods: SafeCount: Opt-out available at: https://www.safecount.net/viewyourcookiesinformation_optinout.php In addition, you can also decline cookies by changing your browser settings as described below. Alternatively, you can exercise cookie choices by visiting any of https://www.aboutads.info/choices/, https://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/ or https://youronlinechoices.com/.

Most web browsers are initially set up to accept cookies, but you can change your web browser settings to cause your browser to refuse cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. You can remove and/or disable cookies by following directions provided in your Internet web browser's "help" file or menu. Please be aware, however, that in addition to preventing functioning of the The Agency Platform, disabling cookies through your browser may also cause some aspects of a Digital Media Property not to function properly.

For this reason, we provide you with the ability to refuse the collection of data for targeted advertising by following the instructions in the "Choice" section of this Policy below.

Please also see our Cookies FAQs for further information about how The Agency uses cookies.

Pixel Tags or Beacons. In addition to cookies, we also collect Analytics Information through the use of tracking pixels, also known as beacons. A tracking pixel is a transparent graphic image (usually 1 pixel x 1 pixel) that is placed on a web page and, in combination with a cookie, allows for the collection of information regarding the use of the web page that contains the tracking pixel. We use tracking pixels to tell when an advertisement has been clicked on or otherwise interacted with, and use that information to judge which advertisements are more appealing to Users. In some cases, we use third party service providers to help us collect and analyze this information.

Mobile Device Identifiers and SDKs. We also sometimes use mobile SDKs to collect Analytics Information. A mobile SDK is the mobile app version of a pixel tag or beacon (see "Pixel Tags or Beacons" above). The SDK is a bit of computer code that app developers can include in their apps to enable ads to be shown, data to be collected, and related services to be implemented. We use this technology to deliver certain advertising through mobile applications and browsers based on Analytics Information associated with your mobile device. If you'd like to opt-out from having ads tailored to you in this way on your mobile device, please follow the instructions in the "Choices" section below.

Appended Third Party Data. We also receive Analytics Information regarding User demographics and preferences from Digital Media Property Owners who choose to provide it to us, as well as from third parties who collect and make available such Analytics Information for advertisement-serving purposes. Please review the "Choice" section of this Policy below for instructions on how to opt-out of having Analytics Information collected for purposes of targeted advertising.

The Agency seeks to work with Digital Media Property Owners and other third parties who comply with all applicable privacy laws with respect to activities that relate to their relationship with us, but ultimately does not have control over such third parties.

We use Analytics Information to allow advertisers to more effectively display advertisements to Users than we could otherwise facilitate without the use of such information. For example, if we have Analytics Information that a User recently viewed ads or content related to car dealers, and we know that the user in in the San Francisco Bay Area, we might use that information to help an advertiser display a video ad for a San Francisco car dealership on a Digital Media Property. Keep in mind that at no time do we know the name, address, phone number or other Personal Information of the User – the Analytics Information we know relates only to the IP address and the recent activity of the web browser software to the extent that cookies are enabled in that software.

If requested by an advertiser, we may also use Analytics Information to determine whether to serve an advertisement to a User and which advertisement to serve. For example, we may use a cookie to note whether a given advertisement has already been viewed by a particular User so that our server will not deliver the same advertisement a second time. If an advertiser wants us to deliver a series of advertisements in a particular sequence, we may use a cookie to note that the first advertisement has been delivered to a particular User so our server knows to deliver the second advertisement in the series when that User next visits Digital Media Property.

We also use Analytics Information to analyze usage of and improve our advertising services. In some cases, we use third party service providers to assist us with such analysis. Sometimes, we may use or make available our Analytics Information (such as IP Address) to recognize users or try to resolve a commonality of users (or households) across platforms or across devices, such as smartphones, computers, tablets or related browsers. For instance, we might infer that a common IP address seen across different devices represents a common user, and use that inference in tailoring ads.

The Analytics Information we collect and receive may be processed on our behalf by third-party service providers that assist us in running our business, including providers of data storage and processing facilities. We also provide Analytics Information regarding Digital Media Properties and advertisement viewing and usage on an aggregated basis to Digital Media Property Owners, advertisers and other third parties (such as Comscore and other analysts) in order to report the performance of advertisements displayed through use of our services.

Sometimes, we integrate our Analytics Information with other platforms, to allow advertisers to access our Digital Media Properties through their interface, or in conjunction with other analytics or marketing services they provide. This might be done, for instance, by synching anonymous identifiers, in order to permit anonymous data that we collect to be used by these platforms and their own customers. Likewise, sometimes we may obtain from other platforms anonymous data they have collected, such as anonymous browser or mobile identifiers; this process, too, may involve a sharing of unique, anonymous identifiers in order to create this synch. We may do this to permit our own customers to have access to this data, or to improve the accuracy of the Analytics Information that we make available.

Law Enforcement, Regulators and Other Legal Disclosures. We may disclose collected information as may be required by any applicable law, rule, regulation or court order or as may be requested through legal process or law enforcement authorities. We may also disclose any information we collect or receive if we believe that doing so is in our interests in order to protect our property or other legal rights (including, but not limited to, enforcement of our agreements) or the rights or property of others.

Merger or Asset Sale. In addition, all information in our possession may be disclosed and transferred as part of any merger, acquisition, debt financing or sale of assets (including any due diligence connected with it), as well as in the event of an insolvency, bankruptcy or receivership.

Our Retention of Information
The Agency retains collected information for various period of time. The cookies that we set expire up to two years from their date of creation. Our opt-out cookies last for at least five years. The retention period for mobile tracking data is undefined, and may vary. Partners that we work with, including platforms that we may integrate with to provide services, may set cookies or retain data for other, longer periods of time, which we do not control.

Since The Agency does not collect Personal Information, we are not able to relate any Analytics Information in our possession to any specific individual. However, you may opt-out of the use of The Agency cookies for purposes of delivering more relevant advertising by clicking on the "Opt-Out" button at the top of this Policy. You can also go to https://www.networkadvertising.org and follow the instructions there; this will also let you opt-out of such data collection and usage by all other NAI member companies. This will set an opt-out cookie on your browser that notifies our servers that no other The Agency cookies should be sent. You can opt-out of receiving cookies from our third party partners, as described above under the heading "Appended Third Party Data," by going to https://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp and following the instructions.  Another industry opt-out site you may find useful, and which includes some companies that are not listed on the above web pages, is https://www.aboutads.info. 

Please note that if your change your computer, change your web browser, or delete your cookies, you will need to renew all of your opt-out choices. Likewise, if your settings (such as a "block third party cookies and site data" setting) do not permit cookies to be set, opt-out cookies will not work, either.

You may also opt out of The Agency's mobile interest-based advertising through your mobile device settings, as described below, and as applicable to most (but not all) mobile devices.  When you do this, The Agency will no longer use your information to deliver behaviorally targeted advertising to your device. Please note that you will continue to receive advertising after you opt-out, but it may not be tailored to your interests.

If you have an Apple device, you can opt out of mobileinterest-based or "cross-app" advertising by updating to iOS 6.0 or higher, and setting Limit Ad Tracking to 'ON'. You can do this by clicking on Settings -> General -> About -> Advertising and toggling Limit Ad Tracking to 'ON'. Our systems are designed to respect your choice and not use information to provide interest-based advertising when this setting is ON.

If you have an Android device and would like to opt out of mobile interest-based or "cross-app" advertising, you may do this as follows:

1. Open the Google Settings app on your device
2. Select Ads
3. Opt out of interest-based ads

Our systems are likewise designed to respect these choices transmitted by your Android device.

Do Not Track ("DNT") is a privacy preference that users may set in certain web browsers. DNT is intended to allow users another method of informing websites and services that they do not want certain information about their website visits collected over time and across websites.

Because the effect of DNT signals remains unclear, and there continues to be no consistent industry understanding of how to respond to such a signal, we do not alter our privacy practices when we detect a DNT signal from your browser. Rather, we provide or respect the consumer choice options set forth in this Section.

We use appropriate technical and organizational security measures to protect information in our possession from loss, misuse, and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. Please note, however, that no data security measures can be guaranteed to be completely effective.

The Agency operates the The Agency Platform from servers located in the United States of America and the information it collects through the Digital Media Properties is processed in the United States of America. Laws governing the collection and use of data in the United States may not be equivalent to those in the country where you reside, but The Agency will at all times protect your data in accordance with this Policy.

We may occasionally update this Policy. When we do, we will also revise the effective date at the beginning of the Policy. We encourage you to periodically review this policy to stay informed about how we collect, use, and disclose information.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns about this Policy, please email us at privacy@theagency.com. Or send us a letter to:

The Agency
303 Park Ave S. Suite 1100
New York, NY 10010
support@theagency.com