Regional adtech solutions provider MMP World Wide (MMPWW) has appointed Aqilliz, a middleware technology provider, to authenticate audiences and establish data provenance within campaign environments. As part of the strategic partnership, Aqilliz will be the official, exclusive technology provider for MMPWW’s marketplaces within the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and North America markets, effective as of January 1, 2022.

Aqilliz specializes in enabling greater data collaboration and privacy compliance across the digital marketing ecosystem. Backed by its proprietary, state-of-the-art technological infrastructure Atom, Aqilliz will leverage federated learning — a machine-learning technique that allows distributed data sets to be queried and reconciled without needing raw user data to leave local storage. This ensures that all deterministic and probabilistic user identification takes place in accordance with local data protection frameworks.

Ayman Hayder, CEO of MMPWW, said in a statement, “Compliance isn’t something that is negotiable and, as more legislative reforms come into effect, it’s crucial that we equip our clients with the right tools and technology so they can be fully prepared. This partnership is hugely significant for the region in light of the recent Data Protection Law and the creation of the UAE Data Office, which will have a big impact on how data is transacted across the digital ecosystem. We consider this a golden opportunity to ensure privacy-first solutions become more commonplace, and we are very excited to work exclusively with Aqilliz to bring their technology to the MENA market”.

Nader Bitar, Managing Director of MMPWW, added, “Today, everyone needs to consider data from multiple perspectives, particularly when it comes to data sharing and how this will work in a practical way. With this partnership we’re bringing this conversation into the open, so we can all collaborate and join forces in building a data-focused, privacy-led landscape for all advertising stakeholders”.

Known for being a pioneering adtech provider across EMEA and APAC, MMPWW offers full-funnel targeting and precision marketing solutions to help their clients reach and engage their audiences in real time. Deploying a combination of in-house tech expertise with valuable strategic industry alliances, MMPWW equips its clients with the tools and knowledge to better monetize their digital advertising inventory, improve campaign performance, and have a dynamic and transparent way to communicate through vibrant content.

Powered by automation to scale delivery of communications to consumers, the company aims to create the next generation adtech solution through effective data mining and tech-driven attribution modeling, offering a cookieless targeting approach to digital advertising. With its headquarters based in Dubai, MMPWW continues to extend its global operations with offices in Lebanon, Singapore, and throughout Europe.

In partnering with Aqilliz, MMPWW and its brands will be set up as nodes across Aqilliz’s hybrid blockchain environment, enabling them to access an immutable digital ledger of transactions that will record all processing activities of audience identification and matching. This ensures the utmost data provenance of these activities, in line with auditing requirements stipulated by data privacy laws.

Gowthaman Ragothaman, CEO of Aqilliz, said, “Legacy technologies in the advertising and marketing technology ecosystem are built for centralized operations. The future of digital advertising is built on managing the value exchanges between brands, platforms, and the consumer, for which we need decentralized solutions in order to be secure and compliant. None of the existing solutions are able to capture and carry consent and provenance across the digital supply chain in order to be compliant. I am extremely thrilled to be partnering with MMPWW in bringing this first of its kind initiative to the marketplace

Led by ex-WPP industry veteran Gowthaman ‘G’man’ Ragothaman, who has spearheaded blockchain-based advertising initiatives with global conglomerates, Aqilliz was founded in 2019 with the aim to bring greater value to the marketing ecosystem by leveraging emerging technology and delivering solutions that ensure safe, secure, and compliant data sharing between businesses and consumers. Aqilliz is also a founding member of the Data Privacy Protocol Alliance (DPPA), an industry body that works towards the future of privacy and data protection.