Data Broker Acxiom Moves to Tie Physical World to Online Data - Digits - WSJ

A booming broker business

"LiveRamp, which has been an Acxiom partner for the last two years, has technology that powers the cookies used by many of those startups. It specializes in what’s known as “data onboarding,” helping firms take data about consumers from the physical world and use it to target them online and smartphones. In effect, LiveRamp identifies that a person using a Web browser in the morning is the same person using a smartphone in the evening.

In an interview, Acxiom CEO Scott Howe described the deal as part of move by Acxiom to become a hub for all consumer data. He has previously said he hopes the firm will become “a Switzerland” of the data-broker industry, setting standards for how to collect and manage the data."

Data Broker Acxiom Moves to Tie Physical World to Online Data - Digits - WSJ