Open, practitioner-grade reference material on clean room architecture, the measurement standard the field is converging on, and the credential that operates these systems.
The Data Clean Room Institute is the independent standards and research body for the privacy-safe data collaboration category. Clean rooms are the foundational infrastructure that anchors the category, but the work the institute publishes spans the full collaboration stack — clean room architecture, the measurement methodology that runs on top of it, and the practitioner capability that operates it.
The institute exists to do what vendors, holdcos, and paywalled analyst firms cannot do credibly: publish open, practitioner-grade research and standards on how this work is actually done, what it costs, where it breaks, and how to choose between approaches.
Four independent demand vectors — retail media, AI workloads, walled-garden measurement, and expanding privacy law — have converged on a vendor layer that keeps consolidating: Snowflake/Samooha, WPP/InfoSum, Publicis/Lotame, and now Publicis/LiveRamp (announced May 2026, $2.2B, expected close year-end 2026) — the largest independent identity and data-collaboration spine in advertising moving inside a holdco. What the market lacks is durable, neutral reference material for the people who actually have to make these systems run. That is the white space DCRI is built to fill.
The institute's current work plan, in order of strategic weight.
The flagship asset, currently in draft. A vendor-neutral architecture taxonomy, in-depth profiles of the twelve most consequential platforms, and a buyer's decision framework. Scoped to advertising and marketing in v1.
In development with a founding Standards Board. Specifies the minimum methodological floor below which vendor-reported numbers should not be considered comparable. Targeted publication: 2026.
DCRI's neutrality is the foundation of every claim the institute makes. The policy is public and dated.
The data clean room certification for individual practitioners. Privacy engineering, measurement science, interoperability, and governance. Distinct from the institutional methodology certification the Standards Board governs. Learn more about CRP™ certification →
Independence is the foundation of every claim the institute makes.
Institute principlePractitioners who want a reference that wasn't produced by a vendor selling a platform.
CMO, VP Data, VP Analytics, marketing science leads. Agency strategists advising those buyers. The decision is rarely between two products — it's between three architectures.
Teams running clean room programs day-to-day. Retail media network operators preparing for measurement-standard adoption. People whose job depends on the work being done right.
Privacy and legal voices responsible for permissioning, auditability, and regulatory posture in collaborative environments where raw data exposure must be controlled.
DCRI is currently self-funded by its founder. There are no outside investors. There are no paid placements in DCRI research. Vendors do not have pre-publication review or veto rights over their profiles. Funding sources that emerge will be named on the methodology page before research is published under them.
The independence policy is the binding document; it lives at /methodology.
Email updates when the v1 Marketing Data Clean Room Landscape and v0.1 of the Retail Media Measurement Standard publish. No other email. No list rental.