Privacy and Data Retention FAQ
Answers to common privacy- and data-related questions or issues.
Privacy FAQ
TIPHow does Audience Manager use cookies and what cookies does it set?
Can Audience Manager clients in the US target users on EU properties?
Yes. Audience Manager works with clients who have international properties and inventory. The EU has strict privacy laws, but Audience Manager has clients who use first-party data for audience targeting in Europe. Audience Manager can support targeting to EU audiences, but it is your responsibility to comply with local privacy regulations.
Data Retention FAQ
The following table lists the retention times for different data types and storage systems.
| Data Type, Source, or Storage | Data Retention Period |
|---|---|
| Back-end servers |
120 days Audience Manager deletes user data from our back-end servers 120 days after last seeing a user on the Audience Manager platform. If Audience Manager records user activity within this 120-day cycle, we will keep this data for another 120 days. |
| Edge servers |
14 days Audience Manager deletes user data from our edge servers 14 days after last seeing a user on the Audience Manager platform. If Audience Manager records user activity in within this 14-day cycle, we will keep this data for another 14 days. If the user becomes active again after the 14-day cycle, there will be a delay between that first new page view and when the user becomes actionable. It takes 6-18 hours to get the full profile back out to the edge center after more than 14 days of inactivity. |
| Raw logs |
60 days (removed after 60 days of no activity) Raw logs are data received by an edge server via HTTP calls or from onboarded files sent in to Audience Manager. |
| Ad Server Logs |
Reporting Log files are retained for reporting purposes for up to 30 days. We do not persist unmatched logs (i.e. logs for which there is no ID sync between a visitor's ad server ID and Audience Manager ID) in our backend storage, and matched logs stored in Amazon S3 are retained for up to 30 days. Actionable Log Files Both matched and unmatched logs are retained for up to 30 days. |
| CRM-level profiles (authenticated profiles) |
The default time-to-live (TTL) interval for inactive CRM-level profiles (Customer IDs) is 24 months. However, you can use the Audience Manager user interface to reduce or extend the TTL interval for inactive CRM-level profiles between one month and 5 years. You can accomplish this when creating or editing a Cross-Device data source. For more information, see Data Source Settings in Create a Cross-Device Data Source. |
| Mobile Device IDs | The retention conditions for mobile device IDs ( IDFA, GAID) follow the cadence described in the first two rows, back-end servers and edge servers. |
| Customer Data Feeds (CDF) | A CDF file contains the same data that an Audience Manager event call (https://experienceleague.adobe.com/event?lang=en) sends to our servers. The retention period is 8 days. For more details about CDF, please refer to CDF Intro and CDF FAQ. |
| Mappings between synchronized IDs | The lifespan of the ID mappings between Audience Manager cookie IDs (Audience Manager Unique User IDs or AAM UUIDs) and 3rd party cookie IDs is limited to 120 days. The lifespan of the ID mapping resets each time the Audience Manager cookie is seen across the Audience Manager network. The most recent ID mapping sync will be preserved for the life of the associated Audience Manager Unique User ID (AAM UUID). |
| Inbound data | This is inbound data you send to Audience Manager by FTP or directly to an Amazon S3 directory. See the Inbound Customer Data Ingestion FAQ. |
| Outbound data | This is the batch data that Audience Manager sends to third party activation partners. The retention period is 8 days. For more details about Outbound data, please refer to Outbound Batch Transfers. |
Trait Qualification Data Retention
The table below lists the retention options for trait qualifications.
| Trait Operation | Description |
|---|---|
| Delete a trait | Deleting a trait removes the trait qualification data from all the user profiles that had qualified for the trait in the past. |
| Trait limit reached |
We impose a limit of 100,000 trait qualifications for each user profile. The limit applies to authenticated profiles and device profiles. If a user profile reaches this limit, we will delete the oldest trait qualifications, on a first-in, first-out basis. For more details, read our Trait Qualification Limit. |
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