Announcing Updates for Customers Receiving Mapping Files (8/29/19)
For customers who receive RampID Mapping Files, we've made two improvements:
We've added the option to include a "Last_seen_at" timestamp column in cookie or mobile device ID mapping files.
We've removed mobile device IDs that have not been seen in the last three years.
We've added the option to include a "Last_seen_at" timestamp column in cookie or mobile device ID mapping files. By giving you the option to include this additional parameter, we want to make mapping files more manageable with actionable data.
Clients receiving RampID Mapping Files can request to include "Last_seen_at" timestamp data at delivery by creating a case in the LiveRamp LiveRamp Community portal.
Timestamps will be in Unix Epoch format.
Cookie Mapping File Example
Timestamps for Mobile Devices IDs
For mobile device IDs, the "Last seen at" timestamp is the most recent timestamp associated with that mobile device ID from our feed of mobile data. In other words, it's the most recent appearance of that mobile device ID RampID linkage across our network of mobile match providers.
Timestamps for Cookies
For cookies, the "Last seen at" timestamp is the last sync date with LiveRamp.
Note
For cookies it's important to note that the last sync date corresponds to that of the LiveRamp cookie associated with your cookie, not your cookie itself. This means that if we see the LiveRamp cookie we've associated with your cookie active elsewhere on our network of match providers, the timestamp will remain current even if you haven't sent your cookie to us for a sync. Since you already know on your end when you last saw your own cookie, you benefit from additional information on whether the user is still active across LiveRamp’s massive footprint.
We have performed a removal of all mobile device IDs from our online Identity Graph (and our mobile device ID mapping files) that have not been seen in the last three years.
In order to maintain the highest standard of data security and privacy regulation compliance, LiveRamp is removing types of data from our systems that do not serve a purpose. As part of this improvement, we have determined that mobile device IDs that have not been seen in the last three years are a source of data that can be reduced easily without impacting client use case performance.
Up until this point, we didn’t restrict the look-back window in mobile mapping files. Enforcing these expirations will make our mobile mapping files more manageable to work with, and will ensure they contain only the most relevant data.
Clients receiving placeholder RampIDs in mobile mapping files will see a ~75% reduction in file size. Clients receiving only derived and maintained RampIDs in mobile mapping files will see a small reduction in file size.
This new change is in line with our goal of minimizing the data that we keep, which improves the performance of mapping files, while making it easier to comply with privacy regulations.
We do not expect these changes to impact the recognition rate of users on mobile devices. In our analysis, we found that almost every user in our graph that was associated with a device that was last seen more than three years ago was also tied to a more recent, active device. Most of the devices that are being removed at this point are not linked to maintained or derived RampIDs.