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How Criteo services work across environments

Why Criteo associates identifiers?

When you browse multiple environments (ie. when you browse using Safari, when you browse using other browsers and when you use an app), the browsing data that we may collect on our partners’ properties are linked to separate identifiers.

Practical example

  • Using a browser, a user visited an Advertiser’s website that uses our technologies. Data relating to its browsing events have been linked to the identifier of the Criteo cookie that have been assigned to the browser he used.

Example of data collected by Criteo: The user with the cookie identifier 123f94d8-a745-4f8b-a1d0-bf6fbbd60058 (let’s name it Criteo ID 123 for convenience) viewed product A on 01/01/2018 at 13:37 while browsing www.example-advertiser.com.

  • Using a smartphone, the same user visited the mobile application (that also uses our technologies) of the same Advertiser. Data relating to its browsing events have been linked to the mobile advertising ID of the smartphone he used.

Example of data collected by Criteo: The user with the mobile advertising identifier 456gf158-62jg-4bj9-5jv1-j25864789h0b (let’s name it Mobile ID 456 for convenience) bought product A on 02/01/2018 at 12:00 on the app named Example-Advertiser

  • In this example, Criteo is not aware that the browsing events related to Criteo ID 123 and Mobile ID 456 are about the same user because the identifiers are different.
  • As a consequence, Criteo will display ads for product A to the user with the Criteo ID 123 although he has already bought product A.

Because Criteo and its clients are committed to provide you with a consistent experience from one environment to another, we may need to associate these identifiers. In this way, we are able:

  • to improve the personalization of the ads we offer you by adapting to the way you navigate;
  • to limit the number of times the same ad will be shown to you, regardless of the environment(s) from which you are browsing; and
  • to allow you to easily deactivate our services on all the terminals you use.

What are the methods used by Criteo to associate identifiers?

We may associate Criteo identifiers on the basis of:

  • our own association methods based on the data we already collect through our technologies;
  • the data that may be transmitted to us by an Advertiser or Publisher in an optional and pseudonymised manner, such as your CRM identifiers and/or email addresses in hash and/or encrypted form;
  • the associations that partners can send us, which they have obtained by using various methods that offer the same level of guarantee as ours in terms of respect for your privacy.