Lawyers typically look to past legal precedents or statutes to guide their clients. In the field of data privacy law, though, “the technology is constantly changing, and the law can’t keep up,” said Noga Rosenthal, general counsel and chief privacy officer for Ampersand.
In her 15-year career, Rosenthal has forged industry guidelines that govern how consumers’ personal information is collected and used in internet advertising. She now applies her experience to advising Ampersand and its television clients on the responsible use of viewer data to personalize advertising.
“She is one of the absolute leaders, from a legal perspective, in data privacy,” said Nicolle Pangis, former CEO of Ampersand, the ad-sales and technology firm owned by Comcast, Cox Communications and Charter Communications.
Rosenthal was commercial counsel for a WPP-owned tech company when she was first drawn to data-privacy law. “The federal government’s guidance to the advertising industry was: ‘Don’t be creepy,’ ” she said. “This was a subjective guideline that presents challenges in its practical application. What is creepy? How do we make sure we are not creepy?”
The federal government’s guidance to the advertising industry was: ‘Don’t be creepy.’ This was a subjective guideline that presents challenges in its practical application. What is creepy?”
Noga Rosenthal
Rosenthal began working with the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI), first as a board member and then for three years as the association’s VP for compliance and policy, to establish standards and compliance rules. “I loved it,” she said. “There were complex moral and ethical dilemmas coming at us rapid-fire.”
She hammered out guidelines on issues such as using an individual’s medical information, then convinced companies with different goals and business models — from small startups to giants like Google — to follow the same rules. “They didn’t always agree, but it was in all our interests to set up the right ethical standards for how we collected data and how we used it,” Rosenthal said.
Industry associations remain her “crucial” resource for staying abreast of new regulations. She currently serves on committees for the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) and the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM).
In 2016, Rosenthal became chief privacy officer at global retail marketing company Epsilon, just as the regulatory landscape changed dramatically. The European Union had adopted the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), requiring all websites that collect data on EU viewers to ask for their consent. The GDPR has also been the model for most of the dozen data-privacy laws passed by U.S. states, she noted.
When Pangis became CEO of Ampersand in 2018, Rosenthal was one of her first hires. Pangis’s goal was to collect and use data from numerous sources to help marketers personalize and target ads. “Sensible use of data insights was of incredible importance not only to Ampersand, but to our owners and our partners,” Pangis said. Rosenthal “had the perfect pedigree that we needed within the company.”
Rosenthal was excited by the challenge of learning the television industry and “taking my digital expertise, knowledge and history, and bringing it to the TV world, which was starting to grapple with the same privacy and data-ethics issues,” she said.
A Natural Teacher
Rosenthal is an adjunct professor at Rutgers University and a frequent speaker at industry conferences. She draws on her teaching experience when explaining legal issues to executives, software engineers, and salespeople.
“I think Noga is as good a student of law and privacy as she is a teacher of law and privacy,” Pangis said. “There were many times that we came up with an idea where Noga would say, ‘No, because these three things are likely to happen in the next three months, and you’ll have to rewind all the work on this.’ She was almost always right.”
Rosenthal has recently been studying AI, and how its use might affect time limits on data storage: “When you’re working with AI, you want as much data as possible to make your AI models work better, and you may not care how old the data is,” she said.
Rosenthal “educates, informs, and gets people comfortable with the why and the how,” said Patty Keenan, Ampersand’s chief people officer. “A lot of people seek Noga out for advice and guidance, and she embraces that. She’s a natural mentor, and people are drawn to her as a mentor.”
Rosenthal’s combination of specialized expertise and concern for employees make her “a well-rounded leader,” Keenan said.
