Exposed: Criteo

Criteo is a global retargeting and advertising technology company that specializes in following users across the internet with personalized product advertisements based on their browsing and shopping behavior. If you have ever looked at a product online and then seen ads for that exact product follow you to other websites, social media, and even email, there is a significant chance Criteo infrastructure powered that tracking. The company operates one of the largest cross-device identity networks in ad tech, matching users across phones, tablets, laptops, and connected TVs using deterministic and probabilistic identity resolution. In June 2023, the French data protection authority CNIL fined Criteo 40 million euros for failing to obtain proper consent before placing tracking cookies on user devices, collecting browsing data, and building advertising profiles. The CNIL investigation found that Criteo tracked users across thousands of websites without valid consent, stored browsing histories indefinitely, and failed to provide transparent information about data processing. Criteo processes commerce data from over 22,000 advertisers and 35,000 publishers, creating a commerce media platform that monitors shopping behavior at unprecedented scale. The company Shopper Graph contains data on over 750 million user identifiers, mapping purchase intent and buying behavior across the open internet.