Struq

What is Struq

Struq was a London based personalised retargeting and dynamic creative optimisation platform acquired by Quantcast in 2014. The technology rebuilds advertising creatives in real time based on the products a visitor has browsed, then serves them across display ad inventory. After the acquisition the brand was retired and the engine is now embedded in Quantcast Advertise, where it operates as a legacy product line for direct response retargeting campaigns.

What data and cookies Struq collects

The Struq tag drops third party advertising cookies on the visitor browser, including a long lived user identifier, a session cookie and a sync cookie used to match identifiers with downstream ad exchanges. The platform records page URLs, product identifiers, dwell time, cart events and conversions, then builds a behavioural profile linked to the cookie identifier. IP address, user agent and rough geolocation are also processed for frequency capping and fraud detection.

GDPR and ePrivacy implications

Because Struq writes non essential cookies and engages in cross site profiling for advertising, Article 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive requires prior informed consent before the tag executes. The downstream processing of behavioural data falls under Article 6(1)(a) GDPR consent, and the profiling triggers the transparency duties of Articles 13 and 22. Regulators in France (CNIL), Germany (DSK) and Italy (Garante) have repeatedly sanctioned retargeting deployments that loaded scripts before consent or relied on legitimate interest.

Consent requirements and user controls

The tag must be gated behind a cookie banner under an advertising or marketing category. The banner must let the user refuse as easily as accept, withdraw consent at any time and access a clear description of Struq and Quantcast as recipients. If you operate inside the IAB Transparency and Consent Framework, the Quantcast vendor identifier and the applicable purposes (1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10) must be signalled to Struq through a valid TC string before any pixel fires.

Data transfers and hosting

Quantcast operates infrastructure in the United States and in the European Union. Identifiers collected by Struq are processed in both regions for bidding and reporting. Transfers to the US currently rely on the EU US Data Privacy Framework, complemented by standard contractual clauses for jurisdictions outside the framework. A transfer impact assessment should be kept on file to document the supplementary measures, such as IP truncation and limited retention.

Practical compliance steps

List Struq and Quantcast in the vendor section of your cookie policy, with the cookie names, purposes and retention. Block the script by default in your tag manager or CMP and load it only after an opt in. Provide a working opt out link to the Quantcast preference centre and to the IAB transparency framework. Keep proof of consent for at least the cookie lifetime, and review the deployment every twelve months to confirm whether the legacy Struq tag is still required or should be migrated to the modern Quantcast Advertise pixel.