Akamai, Engage Aim at Anonymous Profiling

Internet marketer Engage Inc. and Akamai Technologies Inc., a streaming media provider, Monday announced they will unite to deliver on-line content, starting with advertisements and marketing campaigns.

Under the agreement, Engage will purchase Akamai content delivery services built upon the EdgeAdvantage platform and use them to deliver rich media ads for Engage’s on-line media network properties to help marketers identify and target their audiences. These profiles are based strictly on users’on-line browsing habits and interests and contain no personally identifiable information, such as names, addresses or email addresses.

The partners plan to introduce specialized services for targeted ad insertion in streaming media. Content providers will be able to take advantage of Akamai’s delivery network and stream assembly technology along with Engage’s advertising management solutions, which incorporate targeted anonymous profiling. Additionally, the companies plan to co-develop applications for anonymous personalization.

“We see this deal as two online businesses coming together to provide customers with solutions that will help improve visitor acquisition and retention through the use of targeted content and high-performance delivery,” said George Conrades, chairman and chief executive officer, Akamai.

Akamai and Engage are both members of the ICAP Forum and plan to use the Internet Content Adaption Protocol (ICAP) in their collaboration. ICAP will be submitted to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Web Replication and Caching (WREC) working group as an Internet draft at the next WREC meeting.