• by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, November 2, 2010

Sorry BlueKai, but Anurag Harsh, SVP of Strategy and Business Development at Ziff Davis, thinks your data is “pedestrian at best.” Harsh landed the blow after being asked on a panel whether or not Ziff Davis uses data from third-party aggregators. We’ll assume BlueKai, which aggregates shopping and research activities across the Web, disagrees with Harsh’s statement. For Harsh's part, he says Ziff Davis collects and dissects its data in house, though it does have working relationships with unnamed research labs. In house or not, says Harsh, data has to have volume; value; it has to have some relationship with the buyer; and it has to be real-time.

Though not clearly a defense, Jeff Hirsch, CEO of ad network AudienceScience said: “There’s no such thing as BlueKai data…” – explaining that data aggregators partner with agencies and publishers to come up with original data sets.

“Third party data gets a little bit tricky,” remarked Tousanna Durgan, Associate Media Director at MEC. If one thing is for sure, she said, “The more transparent [the data collection] is, the more willing I am to add it to my campaigns.”