Dive Brief:

• Data solutions company Lotame launched a new ID graph called Cartographer, per press materials shared with Marketing Dive. An ID graph ties together a user's online data and privacy preferences from across platforms, according to Lotame.
• Cartographer connects IDs, browsers and devices, giving brands and publishers access to user data across websites, apps, TV and offline views. By bringing together privacy preferences across platforms, Lotame says it is a "one-and-done" compliance solution. Cartographer uses more than 90 platform partners to reach 1.4 billion unique consumers. Tribune Publishing is a launch partner.
• In a related development, Google will sunset support for third-party tracking pixels on YouTube, in part to enhance data protection. It is working with Nielsen, Comscore, DoubleVerify, Dynata, Kantar and Integral Ad Science to move their services to a cloud-based measurement solution called Ads Data Hub.

Dive Insight:

Lotame's launch of Cartographer comes as the landscape for user data changes, both from brands and publishers looking for better tracking across platforms and amid a privacy landscape shaped by changing consumer attitudes and compliance with privacy regulation like the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the forthcoming California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

As people move between desktop, mobile, connected TV and other platforms, it becomes increasingly difficult to track anonymized users. Each addition to tracking algorithms makes them more complex and potentially narrows the audience. Cartographer promises to mitigate some of that by creating what Lotame calls "a master graph of graphs" of user data.

For publishers like Tribune, better tracking will not only keep them compliant with GDPR and CCPA, but also help them offer better consumer data to marketers.

"Managing consent across every instance of a user creates enormous technology and UX hurdles," Grant Whitmore, Tribune Publishing's chief digital operations officer, said in the press materials. "As an industry we have to figure this out in a manner that generates trust in our readers."

Cartographer is likely one of the first of many data solutions that will emerge amid this new privacy- and data-centric landscape. That is especially true after Google announced next year's end of third-party tracking pixel support on YouTube, due to the inability for pixels to account for the 70% of viewing that occurs on mobile devices globally.

Ads Data Hub should help marketers see how their ads are performing across screens, aggregating data from YouTube, Google Ads and more, while adding another layer of privacy protection, according to Google.