Welcome to the February edition of Neudata Tidbits for data providers.

This month, we take a look at new regulatory developments affecting data users in the US, UK and EU, and discuss the implications of Google’s decision to limit third-party cookies on its web browser by 2022.

SEC RESTORES ENFORCEMENT POWER
With President Biden’s first full month in office behind him, market players are getting a glimpse of the stricter regulations that his administration plans to enforce over the next four years. His team has already taken several steps to regulate the activities of financial services firms, including a decision this month to let more SEC enforcement officials launch investigations.

The policy change will let the regulatory body be more active when investigating companies for insider trading and the improper use of data. It is essential that data sellers evaluate their compliance procedure and ensure that the datasets they sell and market have a low risk of breaching SEC standards. If you haven’t already completed Neudata’s Due Diligence Questionnaire, it’s a useful tool to show data buyers that you’ve seriously considered compliance issues within your datasets.

In other regulatory news, the EU gave a thumbs-up to Britain’s data protection laws, saying the bloc would still be comfortable with EU companies transferring consumer data to the UK in the wake of Brexit. This is good news for data vendors, as the decision will continue the free flow of personal data between the EU and the UK without additional compliance costs. Data providers currently won’t have to change their existing process of transferring data between the regions and, if adopted by EU member states, the adequacy decision would initially be valid for four years.

THE RISE OF ESG DATA & THE FALL OF THIRD-PARTY COOKIES
We are currently experiencing a big increase in demand for ESG data from our buy-side clients. Since the start of 2021, we’ve received over 65 requests for more information on ESG topics or vendors, with many clients most interested in ESG ratings and data that track company emissions, climate and regulatory changes. We’ve also introduced new ESG search functionality to help buy-side clients find relevant data in the space on our platform.

Do you have a data offering that is relevant to ESG topics? If so, please reply to this email or reach out to research@neudata.co to tell us about it.

This month, the buy-side has been tracking Google’s decision to block third-party cookies in its web browser by 2022. Data derived from third-party cookies can be controversial, especially when it’s used to track individual user-level behaviour online. Google’s decision will force data providers to find and implement alternative methods (other than third-party cookies) to track browsing activity within two years.

We’re keeping buy-side firms informed of any innovative developments in this space, so if you’re moving away from third-party cookies in favour of alternative data collection methods, please reply to this email or reach out to research@neudata.co.

SPRING FLING -  JOIN NEUDATA'S ALT-DATING PROGRAMME
Join Neudata on March 23-25 for our Spring Virtual Summit and get involved in our first Alt-Dating Programme of 2021. When you take part in our personalised 1-2-1 networking service, we match you with real alternative data buyers and schedule meetings that can lead to data sales opportunities. At last year’s Winter Summit, we arranged 500+ of these meetings between data vendors and buyers, leading to countless leads and successful deals.

This spring, we anticipate a record turnout at the Summit, with 700+ data buyers and providers scheduled to attend. If you’re in interested meeting serious data buyers through this programme, reach out to events@neudata.co to secure your place.

PEOPLE MOVES
Make sure you check out our people moves section, which recaps the latest job moves in the alternative data industry. If you want us to recap your new job or latest promotion, get in touch with Sondra at sondra@neudata.co.

4 Feb — Fidelity Investments, AllianceBernstein, SurveyMonkey and more
11 Feb — Millennium, Likefolio, FinTech Studios and more
18 Feb — Arabesque S-Ray, AXA, App Annie, and more
25 Feb — Yodlee, Point72, Bridgewater, BattleFin and more

Until next time,
Sondra & Saima