Zero Knowledge Ads by Profila (1/4)

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

Profila proposes “zero knowledge advertising” (aka the "cookie-killer"), a privacy-preserving adtech solution enabling personalized ads online, w/o surveillance or leaking user’s data with 3d parties.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

Privacy/Tech lawyer + AdTech expert + team of (20+) industry experts with marketing & privacy expertise from multinationals. AdTech research partnership with Uni. of Madrid (big data institute) w. first publication on ZKA (see attachment). Product bèta-ready, pilot ongoing.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

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Existing Catalyst funded projects - Profila has already received funding by the Cardano community for 4 project workstreams (privacy - data sharing via NFTs - digital ID - tokenization/gamification) - during fund 5, 6, 7 and 8 of Project Catalyst. We thank the Cardano community for their trust and support.

All our projects are aimed at giving people back control over their personal data, control over brand content they see, and provide people with compensation for their data and attention. The project workstreams we are developing are the following:

1. Privacy - titled: Control your data - privacy ledger (funds 5 and 8); and Company privacy ledger (GDPR & CCPA)

2. Data sharing via NFT: NFT for customer feedback/content (fund 6); and (d)app to control your data (fund 6)

3. DID - Control your data (vault) via PRISM (funds 6 and 8)

4. Tokenization/Gamification - anonymity and data control with ZKT (funds 7 and 8).

With this first proposal around our zero-knowledge advertising research with the University of Madrid (UC3M) and the Santander Big Data Institute, we are starting a fifth workstream around privacy preserving advertising.

Via this submission, we are requesting funding to develop the first phase of our "cookie-killer" privacy preserving advertising solution called "Zero Knowledge Advertising".

This ZKA workstream is build up in 4 phases (introduction - emergence - immersion - evolution) and will build further on many of the features that are under development under the first 4 workstreams (e.g. it can only work with a DID, requires a token (ZEKE) and has a lot of privacy features).

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We invite you to read our pitch deck and check out our product demo (both in PDF attached to this proposal), which will show you more details about our product, market, go to market, team, business model, traction, partnership, funds and grants received. Our product demo shows you the app that exists today and explains the most important features.

Detailed solution description

Profila has developed a new customer data, engagement and marketing platform that will be disrupting the trillion-dollar AdTech industry and capture an increasing percentages of global data and advertising revenues (USD 455 billion today and expected to reach USD 982.82 billion by 2025) as brands seek alternatives to tracking centric platforms (Facebook & Google).

Profila is now decentralizing this marketing platform feature by feature in the first ever DeMar or Decentralized Marketing platform (build on Cardano). With Profila's DeMar platform, consumers will have a greater control over their data and the ads they see, and most importantly, they will be able to directly connect with brands that matter to them, without passing by the numerous intermediaries in today's advertising ecosystem. Brands will have a clearer view on who sees their content.

By cutting out the intermediaries and creating a system for privacy-preserving data sharing and anonymous ad-delivery, called "Zero Knowledge Advertising", each profila user will be able to (i) decide when to see an ad (if any), (ii) which company can send such (paid) content, (iii) whether the company has any info about you (or whether its done in full anonymity). In addition, you get paid to see an ad and (even more) to interact with it as Profila shares 50% of the ad revenue it received directly with the individual who accepted to see the content. Imagine USD 982.82 billion ad revenue being shared with the people targeted by the ads (but instead of targeting, complete user control).

This ZKA workstream is build up in 4 phases (introduction - emergence - immersion - evolution) and will build further on many of the features that are under development under the first 4 workstreams (e.g. it can only work with a DID, requires a token (ZEKE) and has a lot of privacy features). We therefore had to wait for this fund before we could submit this proposal.

Under this first project "Zero Knowledge Ads by Profila (1/4)", we are building the first part of the zero knowledge advertising system called "introduction".

TRAFFICKING STRATEGY - Mid-to-high market contextually relevant open exchange inventory with reasonable balance between reach and quality.

AUDIENCE STRATEGY - Start with contextual targeting and then retarget those that have given permission with run-of-exchanges.

DEMAND ECONOMICS - Advertisers pay per CPM for fully-managed campaigns including creative, trafficking, audience building, and reporting.

SUPPLY ECONOMICS - Users earn (promise for) tokens for their data.

DATA ASSET - Retargeting data and contextual performance data.

For more information about Profila's zero knowledge advertising research that forms the basis of our DeMar strategy, see the scientific research paper attached to this proposal, which is also accessible here - https://profila.com/token/downloads/Zero%20Knowledge%20Advertising%20-%20yellowpaper.pdf

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

The challenge is as follows: ""What dapps, products and integrations can be implemented to bring impactful use cases to Cardano ecosystem that help drive more adoption?""?

Profila's DeMar platform will provide business (small to large) all over the world with a new privacy-preserving alternative to communicate with and advertise to their customers. Via the brand dashboard of this (De)Mar platform, brands can (i) get anonymous yet accurate, evergreen customer data directly from the customer connected to their brand; (ii) then send personalised offers/Ads to the customer with no data leakage, improving targeting, reducing Ad fraud and adhering to regulations as the customer remains fully anonymous.

With current data collection techniques (e.g., third party cookies) that are found illegal under GDPR (a.o) for lack of transparency & control for users, the current Ad-Tech model is unsustainable and under scrutiny. As brands will have to find alternatives to tracking-centric platforms (Facebook & Google), new AdTech solutions will provide brands with a safe heaver (from regulation) to still delight their customers with the best of their content.

This proposal addresses the challenge as it provides a (d)app for companies where ad delivery transactions are linked to to the blockchain for auditability reasons (e.g. combatting ad fraud).

The impact of our zero knowledge advertising solution can be enormous. The current adtech market is worth 450 billion dollars and will grow until 1 trillion USD by 2025. This market is largely unchallenged and in the hands of a couple adtech giants (GAFAs). They all use surveillance and unethical data sharing techniques to commercialize advertising. If our solution is adopted even by a fraction of the market, the number of transactions on Cardano will be enormous considering the amount of ads that are shown each day.

Explainer video (2 min) "Profila for consumers" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt4NUfuWQJ8

Explainer video (3 min) "Profila for brands" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8UczMYWx1U&t=66s

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

Challenges

1. Scalability and speed of Cardano blockchain for high volume ad serving/audit trail
2. Cost of high volume transaction ledger/record of all Ads served on Cardano
3. Self governance and the privacy/security of peer-to-peer ad serving network incentivised by the community

Risks

1. Cardano blockchain speed and cost might be prohibitive to project success/adoption
2. Peer-to-peer ad serving model has privacy pros and cons (part visibility technically of final ad served to end person), which needs to be assessed in the project, i.e. true zero knowledge advertising or step in right direction. Resolving this risk in the project will help define Digital Identity and Zero Knowledge Proof requirements for true zero knowledge advertising in DeMar ecosystem.
3. Integration into adtech/ad server ecosystems which require high-speed might limit scalability of the solution on Cardano, although the POC will prove viability of the approach

Our “grants and partnerships” slide shows some of the research, institutional and governmental relationships we have build up over the last years. We have the necessary funding and technical partners to successfully manage multiple projects on Cardano, together with our team of almost 20 people. Our development partnership with Mlabs (blockchain) and Steppechange (Adtech/Data) as well as our relationship with IOHK’s professional development team complement our own CTO/dev team in the technical deliverables. Our long term research partnerships with the University of Luzern (privacy - NLP/ML) and University of Madrid (adtech, digital identity, zero knowledge advertising) give us access to 2 teams of +5 experienced professors/researchers who are working on a monthly basis on our projects. Our funding slide in the deck also shows we have obtained sufficient funding – apart from the +1 million USD grants – to survive as a company during these uncertain times in the market. We will definitely be able to make good on our promise to the Cardano community to deliver.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

1. Week 1: project kick-off with COO, CTO and AdTech advisor, internal dev team discussing technical requirements to be included in the PRD (product requirement document)
2. Week 2-6: Research and system implementation design by AdTech advisor/Guru delivering Ad ecosystem as-is and to-be DeMar roadmap, with a focus on decentralisation of core Ad technologies, i.e ad serving based on profile data. Focus is on replacing the third party cookie requirement, with Profila zero knowledge advertising system, delivering targeting for brands with zero data leakage and full anonymity for users/people
3. Week 7-8: submission of the draft PRD (product requirement document) by the AdTech advisor/Guru to the business team for review, iteration by CTO & zero knowledge advertising researchers implementation planning into the Profila platform.
4. Week 9: final PRD submitted, with project divided into 14 days sprints, with scrum calls and update calls in the calendar of all team members.
5. Week 10: dev sprints start
6. Week 10-36: development, integration and testing
7. Week 36-54: Final end to end testing on live platform, and review by AdTech advisors and researchers to ensure delivery of the first 'step 1 - introduction' of the zero knowledge advertising system design.

As the voting ends in August and funds are distributed in September, we consider the first week to be somewhere late September, early October 2022 (kick-off meeting).

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Via this submission, we are requesting funding to develop the first phase of our "cookie-killer" privacy preserving advertising solution called "Zero Knowledge Advertising".

This will require at least a budget of 174.000 USD for a 12-month development project, to be allocated as follows:

1. Research and PRD development - USD 25.000

2. Business analysis and UX/UI design work - USD 14.000

20 days of senior designer work @ 700 USD per day (design of extra screens in the app)

3. Project management and reporting overall - USD 15.000

30 days of project management and reporting @ 500 USD per day (2 weekly coordinator calls, monthly reporting, AMAs, townhall videos, closeout reports, medium articles, updates in weekly newsletters etc.)

4. Development and testing to delivery - USD 120.000

• 40 days of senior developers from Mlabs @ 150 USD per hour / 1.200 USD per day (48.000 USD)

• 40 days of senior web/backend developer @ 1000 USD per day (40.000 USD)

• 40 days of junior web/backend developer @ 400 USD per day (16.000 USD)

• 40 days of app developer @ 400 USD per day (16.000 USD)

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

Main contact persons:

Profila GmbH

Michiel Van Roey, Co-Founder of Profila and Project Head

See LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/michielvanroey/

University of Madrid, Santander Big Data Institute

Ruben Cuevas Rubin

See Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/rcuevas/

Core project team:

1. AdTech Guru & Technology Advisor - Profila & world federation of advertisers advisor and AdTech industry known CTO - Researcher (Mikko Kotila see Linkedin link below)
2. Profila business process analyst - Mitchell Goodie https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitchellgoudie/
3. Profila designers - design and implement Profila platform UX/UI - Elizaveta Malashchuk - https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizaveta-malashchuk/
4. Profila's chief decentralization officer - Michiel Van Roey - https://www.linkedin.com/in/michielvanroey/
5. Profila - Engineering team/testers - 1-3 devs assigned as per PRD specifications

We have a versatile team with experience in blockchain projects that is able and committed to tackle this challenge.

- MICHIEL VAN ROEY, (Co-founder, Crypto-legal and decentralization expert and Chief Legal Officer); Belgian, 10 years XP as EU-qualified business lawyer in international law firms, an international organization (CERN), and a multinational company (Cisco). Specialized in tech & and privacy law; author crypto-asset regulations (see https://thelawreviews.co.uk/title/the-virtual-currency-regulation-review/belgium). See LinkedIn profile of Michiel, https://www.linkedin.com/in/michielvanroey/.  

- SHAWN BOONE JENSEN, (Founder & CEO); South African; 20+ years XP in senior management role in ISP's, SI and global Telco organizations, most recently as Head of Product &Head of Customer Presales and Service MEA in Vodafone Global Enterprise (VGE). See LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnj/.

- LUKE BRAGG, (Chief Product Officer); US citizen & Swiss resident; 20 years XP designing creative digital solutions for complex organizations (G7 organization in Russia; digital strategy lead for Akzo Nobel in the Netherlands; Director of Enterprise Architecture for Merck/MSD). See LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucasbragg/.

- IPEK SAHINER, (Chief Operating Officer); Swiss and Turkish citizen, Computer Engineer with 20 years XP as computer engineer and project manager in the telecom sector at Nokia, supporting local Swiss and global network operators. See LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/ipeksahinerschlecht/. 

- REMY MERCKX (Chief Growth Officer); French; 23 years XP in the Travel & Hospitality Industry, - most recently as senior vice-president global digital & marketing – for Radisson Hotel Group with a focus on digital, distribution, marketing, branding and customer first competencies. See Linkedin, https://www.linkedin.com/in/remy-merckx-4b8a601/. 

- CLARA-ANN GORDON, Swiss; partner at Niederer Kraft Frey (NKF; Zürich), legal advisor to Profila. See LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/clara-ann-gordon/. 

- ELIE AUVRAY, French; co-Founder of logion (public blockchain network), blockchain advisor to Profila; See LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/elieauvray/. 

- PHILIP LAMS, Belgian, serial entrepreneur & Profila board member, sales & business advisor to Profila; See LinkedIn, https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-lams-a9a64215/. 

BULLISH DUMPLING, Cardano Community ambassador and interviewer, with 5000+ highly relevant cardano followers, known for interviewing Cardano Foundation CEO (Frederik Gregaard). See Twitter https://twitter.com/BullishDumpling

HOSKY, see twitter - https://twitter.com/hoskytoken

Mitchell Goodie (product analyst) https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitchellgoudie/

Elena Meier (legal intern) https://www.linkedin.com/in/elena-meier3/

University of Madrid + IOHK + Mlabs

Our own team will work together our research team from the University of Madrid:

For the blockchain development part of the ZKA system, we will work with our partner and hired development resources at MLabs.

For the adtech development part of the ZKA system, we will work with a company that has a lot of experience building advertising tech systems called Steppechange. https://steppechange.com/

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

Yes, this proposal is only our first step into developing a zero-knowledge advertising solution.

This ZKA workstream is build up in 4 phases (introduction - emergence - immersion - evolution) and will build further on many of the features that are under development under the first 4 workstreams (e.g. it can only work with a DID, requires a token (ZEKE) and has a lot of privacy features). We therefore had to wait for this fund before we could submit this proposal.

Under this first project "Zero Knowledge Ads by Profila (1/4)", we are building the first part of the zero knowledge advertising system called "introduction".

Under the follow up projects (10 and further), we will submit additional proposals to further build out the ZKA system in 4 phases.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

Profila will provide the community with detailed periodical progress for this proposal (once funded) in the following ways:

1. Github repository updated (1x per month, after the initial scrum sessions for creation of the PRD, product requirement document
2. 2-weekly updates to other Cardano proposers via the Catalyst coordinator call
3. 2-weekly updates in our "Cardano projects" newsletter (register via our website https://ico.profila.com)
4. Monthly project process and KPI reports submitted to Catalyst teams and available to the public for verification.
5. Monthly Swarm session office hour (at end of townhall) for a Question and Answer session about our funded projects.
6. Periodical AMAs by the Profila founders to talk about our progress.

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

Success on the long term is a viable prototyped replacement of third party cookies.

POC success is a targeted Ad served from the Profila Ad Server, through a mobile peer-to-peer network to an anonymous person in the Profila App, with the Ad server/brand and anonymous persons Ad engagement (impression and Clickthrough) logged onto the blockchain for audit (reducing the chances of Ad fraud).

TRAFFICKING STRATEGY - Mid-to-high market contextually relevant open exchange inventory with reasonable balance between reach and quality.

AUDIENCE STRATEGY - Start with contextual targeting and then retarget those that have given permission with run-of-exchanges.

DEMAND ECONOMICS - Advertisers pay per CPM for fully-managed campaigns including creative, trafficking, audience building, and reporting.

SUPPLY ECONOMICS - Users earn (promise for) tokens for their data.

DATA ASSET - Retargeting data and contextual performance data.

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

New project based on the industry leading zero knowledge advertising research (https://profila.com/token/downloads/Zero%20Knowledge%20Advertising%20-%20yellowpaper.pdf) and the first in several phases to deliver a DeMar/decentralized marketing roadmap for the future of marketing on blockchain, the first implementation of DeMar globally on Cardano.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

This will help solve the Social Dilemma.