EU: Vice President calls for measures to promote trust in online targeting

Category: Nachrichten
By: M. Schröder - 2B Advice GmbH - the privacy benchmark

Ms. Neelie Kroes is Vice President of the European Commission and is responsible for the "Digital Agenda". In a speech to the Online Tracking Protection & Browsers Workshop in Brussels she called on the business community to take appropriate measures to build more trust among Internet users with regard to properly handling their personal data in online targeting.

In her speech, Ms. Kroes noted that the amendments made to the "ePrivacy Directive" were not being fully implemented. Only five Member States reported taking steps toward implementation. The amendments to the ePrivacy Directive concern, among other things, the handling of cookies, especially as they are used in online targeting.

 

Online targeting helps companies tailor advertisements to individual users, thereby avoiding 'scatter losses' during advertising campaigns. Tracking goes one step further, ensuring that users are confronted with the same advertisement as they browse through a series of web pages. This process uses, in addition to cookies, browser add-ons such as “browser fingerprinting”.

 

Ms. Kroes first called on the advertising sector to practice more self-regulation, especially by providers offering “behavioural advertising”. She referred to the fundamental elements in this area as transparency, self-regulation and new technologies and said that relying on users being able to deactivate cookies in their browsers was nowhere near sufficient.

 

Initiatives that would label targeted advertising with an identifying symbol would be welcome, she said. Users would then be able to click for more information on how the targeting works, on different kinds of targeting, and on the opt-out option.

 

She also identified techniques such as “Do-Not-Track” (DNT) as steps in the right direction, noting however that the standards required have yet to be drafted. With DNT in the browser, users can set their preference not to be tracked. Web page operators could then read this information and cease certain tracking measures. Ms. Kroes called on those involved to pass a DNT standard by June 2012.

 

Should self-regulation initiatives not lead to tangible improvement, Ms. Kroes announced, she would use all means available to her to extend the applicability of data protection to this area as well.

 

Companies in the sector should take advantage of the opportunity for self-regulation. The goal are clear and consistent standards – and above all, binding standards. If companies fail to take the opportunity, she noted, the legislative authority would fill the regulatory gaps as it sees fit. Compared to the often long and drawn-out process of legislation, self-regulation can produce clear structures for companies and for those affected much more quickly.

 

More information:

 

europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do

 

 

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