Staying compliant in a changing legal landscape | Margarita Sovertokina from Usercentrics

[Music] We are now joined by Margarita Sovatina from user centrics. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. The event is lovely. You know, so many people, so many new faces, so many people that I already know. So, it's great to be here. Uh, and yeah, looking forward to our conversation today. Fantastic. Well, I think I've spoken to user centrics in the past maybe at some point, but we can't assume everyone's watched. So, for people who don't know what is user centrics, what do you do? Yeah. Uh, sure. I'm sure you have visited like bunch of websites and you can see this like cookie banners. That's what we do. But we don't do this only for websites. We do this also for apps and for mobile games. That's why we are here, right? And it's not only about the banner. It's be uh it's about compliance. It's about, you know, becoming compliant with all the global regulations because there are so many of them right now and it's

becoming a headache for the the the game publishers to to be fully compliant. And that's when we come, right? We we help publishers to understand better the environment of data privacy and how to collect the content and how use it for like personalized ads u and so on. For now, it's very strict only in Europe, but I'm sure it's, you know, going to evolve more in the other regions as well. But yeah, that's that's in short and in easy, I would say language, that's what we do. Well, I know talking about things like data, that's something that you're doing a panel on later on in the day with a few other people on that subject. But regarding those data privacy regulations, like what kind of challenges do mobile developers face and how is your platform kind of tackling and dealing with the everchanging privacy landscape? You mentioned Europe for example like that was a that was a big change and at the Apple app store they clamp down on data gathering. How do you deal with it? How do you make sure you're still compliant while

getting the data you need? Yeah, exactly. So uh if we're talking about developers or pub game developers or publishers uh before I think this topic because we are we have been attending the events like and focusing on gaming industry for the last three years and before the people were like that's that's not about us that's not about monetization it has nothing to do with marketing or attribution it's all about the legal team right here is our legal colleague go to talk to them but the things has drastically changed I I think it's also because of the Google AdMob and requirements from Google uh and from like other you know like monetization and attribution uh providers. So basically now if you are a publisher and you're monetization on user um uh UX or uh user acquisition manager you need this is your responsibility and you need to do this for improving your uh monetization

results right and it's becoming a headache because the people like in the industry they don't know how to deal with this and there is no only one requirement there is like every half a year they're popping up around the globe different requirements Right. And then like the people are spending a lot of time on this trying to understand and trying to be compliant and still they're not sure if they're fully compliant. And then when we come and we say don't worry about it, leave it for us. I mean we don't provide like a real legal consultation but we have a SDK that you can basically install in your apps and uh yeah you can become like in couple of clicks uh you can become uh compliant and you can also expand this to the different regions right because for example now as I said right it's a mostly in European area that if you want to be compliant uh with the regulation and also uh keep doing uh personalized ads you need to have this consent banner and

what uh what we do is basically we help you to set it up. You set up the banner and you keep monetized, you keep doing your job, you know, you kept you keep focusing on what game publishers and developers love, right? To develop the games to uh create the new characters, monetize, you know, analyzing uh user experience and so on. So they can keep doing the core core job what they can do and we take this the pain right from the being uh in alliance with the regulations. Well, you talk about the the data and the privacy and the gathering. There's there is still data out there in the world. We people are able to gather bits and pieces and the data has been showing recently during that slump that we've been having the last two years have been a bit difficult for the industry and it means that we've seen that fewer people are like spending money on the items in the games. They've seen that actually more people are playing them, but there's been a down a downturn in some cases. This is according to a report by Unity last

year. Um, are you seeing or hearing anything about that or from when you're dealing with your section compliance and things like that, the way that payment systems are used and monetization, does that become part of the making sure you're data compliant in terms of things like gathering credit card information and things like that? Is there a crossover there? And are you noticing a change? Um, I would say this is more like a first party data. Uh, we more help with the third party data. So you know like when you track the uh when you collect the information for attribution, marketing, monetization and so on. So to do this to keep monetizing you need to collect the content first, right? So when you collect the content then uh you can keep doing the what what you have done before. But coming back to your question about like that there are so many players right but they are not buying or they're not like um creating that much revenue. Of course, it's great, you know, that there are like so many new players and the people are more

engaged in the game, but of course the the publishers, they would like to uh to get some money from this, right? And I think here is the key is to be transparent with the users because imagine me as Margarita, right? I don't love the app. I'm going there especially if I'm a European, right? Because the people are concerned about their data about, you know, what's going on. Uh we are living in such a time, right? So uh I think here it's it's very important to be transparent with the users to tell him okay look I'm doing this and that and I would like you to agree because after this and that will happen right I will like send your data there and you know to be transparent and ask for consent because if you don't do at the end like you don't know who your user is I mean you cannot do the personalized ads and you cannot analyze as much the user experience and then you are also breaking the trust in a way you know because I have many friends you know that they are using some apps or webs

and if they don't get the the banner or they don't understand what the the the platform is doing then it's it's not ethical I think in one way and in another it's not compliant so you can also get winds and as well the that it's just ruining the user trust so I think for the publishers it's important to collect the first party data So really focus on who is the user, who is the the behavior of the the the gamers, right, who are playing the games and as well to to build the trust, to be transparent because at the end of the day, I think this is this is one of the one of the the the one of the things. M well we talked a lot to about people uh using AI last year and it being a you know a big buzzword in the industry. Now a lot of companies companies like yourselves I'm sure have been using machine learning ML for years

and so it's not necessarily a new thing but there is this generative AI and other other other systems people are employing to take advantage of it. Is that something that you folks are interested in? Do you think it's going to have a big impact on the industry at large or is this a bit of a kind of bubble? Yeah. Um I think it's just the beginning of AI, right? So everybody is like starting to use this. I also think there is like a lot of uh potential. Of course, we like also use it in a way like in data privacy industry. But again, you know, we we need to be careful with that. And I know like uh I mean in our in our solution we have some uh automation with AI but still like we need to keep it compliant and ethical because like I'm sure you also have uh you know noticed in some social medias that the people are using it not in really ethical way and like there is a lot of uh confusion but if we are talking for example about gaming industry I think AI

is a is a great thing I mean it helps a lot of developers to you know uh to create more um more like clever um clever characters you know in the games. So the the the gamers are more uh the they are more into the game like they are more hooked you know because the the characters are smarter or the experience is more real. So I think in this AI can help a lot as well right to develop the games to write the code it makes makes it easier and I think about the monetization in general that part of that 2year stump that we've been enduring within the industry has seen an awful lot of layoffs and you know people downsizing and developers downsizing and you know maybe games they thought would work haven't and as a result you know the developers themselves and the staff has been hit. Hopefully, we're nearing the end of this, but have you seen a reflection in that in the the developers

and the people that you work with? And do you see it as a something that we're on the tail end of or are we still in kind of dangerous waters? Um, I think it might be slowing down as you said, but I think it might come back in couple of years. Uh, because the industry is changing. It's not only gaming industry, it's the tech in general, right? uh because there are a lot of new technologies again AI right that is replacing some of our tasks so I think it's going to be there uh for a while but this is not a bad thing right it's like for us uh uh it's a good thing for us as well to learn a new skills you know to improve ourselves and uh yeah I mean I see it like the the technologies are helping in a way to make uh our life a bit easier but then we have to be more flex flexible if we are talking about user centrics in particular uh I would say it didn't affect us as much uh because the

we are basically working with different industries so we kind of diversificate across all of them and as well we have different products so that helps and I would say as well because you know the data privacy industry with years becoming stricter and stricter so we have more and more work and uh actually last year we even were able to hire like uh I think around 100 more people and we also expand we had like I think we have four offices in Europe and one outside so yeah I mean our industry is going uh quite well at the moment good to hear well I mean you came to the show today and obviously I mentioned you're doing a panel later on what to you is the reason to come to physical events like these is I mean you could do this a lot of business online and we all do but is there a a difference with the physical events? Do you find there's a specific

reason to come? I mean definitely I think um you know the after covid right everybody started to do a lot of online business and you know marketing but I still think especially in gaming industry as I said right we started to come to like pocket gamer three years ago and when we came the first time like we didn't know anybody and it's really hard to get into the industry right because it's a bit tight you need to go there be be there present you know go to network and communicate And then people know you, they know what you do. And that's actually how it happened that we build the trust by be being present at the event. We build the brand awareness. And back then the people like no one wanted to talk to us because they were like uh cookie banners compliance. We just want develop games, you know, we don't really we don't really do this, you know. And then the uh ADM Mob deadline came like in January last year. So it's basically if you want to be

compliant you need to implement the consent management platform uh from Google certified uh provider that we are and then everybody like oh I remember Margarita and you know we are connected on LinkedIn and so on and it made it way easier and that's why they didn't go looking around they already knew that okay I met Margarita in last pocket gamer I remember her let's have a chat I think that helps a lot well we're delighted that you're able to come and Hopefully we'll see you again at future events, but best of luck with the panel and speak to you again soon. Thank you. [Music]