Consumer and digital groups in Europe and the U.S. call for a full ban on surveillance-based advertising
On 1 June, the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD), that EDRi is part of, published a policy resolution on banning surveillance-based advertising. The invasive practices of collecting, sharing, and processing of individual data to deliver personalized advertising, has become the primary business model in the online advertising space. Surveillance advertising is promoted by the world’s largest technology companies, like Meta (Facebook) or Alphabet (Google), and is a key driver behind the spread of misinformation, undermining democratic discourse, economic and political equity, marketplace competition, privacy, public health, and basic consumer protections.
On 1 June, the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD), that EDRi is part of, published a policy resolution on banning surveillance-based advertising. The invasive practices of collecting, sharing, and processing of individual data to deliver personalized advertising, has become the primary business model in the online advertising space. Surveillance advertising is promoted by the world’s largest technology companies, like Meta (Facebook) or Alphabet (Google), and is a key driver behind the spread of misinformation, undermining democratic discourse, economic and political equity, marketplace competition, privacy, public health, and basic consumer protections. As the potential for harm vastly outweighs the potential benefits, TACD calls for a full ban on surveillance-based advertising.
Why a call for a full ban?
Surveillance has become a central element of the digital economy. Platforms like Facebook or Google build their business on the back of amassing personal data, resulting in the expansive use of mechanisms to collect, identify, track, classify, sort, discriminate, and discard online profiles to deliver hyper personalized targeted ads. Profiles are deployed and used pervasively in all aspects of our lives, including in financial, health, housing, educational, and employment contexts.
The structure of the surveillance advertising industry acts against the fundamental right to privacy and equal opportunity and increases the risks of cybersecurity breaches and data leaks due to the volume of data processed. Surveillance and profiling can pose a threat to individual consumers, by facilitating discriminatory and exclusionist practices and threatening an individual’s civil rights, freedom of choice, and equal opportunity.
Beyond individual risks, surveillance practices provide opportunities for targeted manipulation, discrimination, disinformation, radicalization, and fraud, and thus constitute a substantial risk to the health of public debates and the functioning of democratic institutions. These risks are particularly pronounced for marginalized, racialized, and other vulnerable populations, such as children.
Our recommendations on a full ban of surveillance-based advertising are based on:
- The high risk of causing harm to individuals, groups, communities, and society at large
- The inability of consumers to reasonably avoid being tracked through and for surveillance-based advertising
- The inability of current and proposed mechanisms to address the damaging externalities that surveillance advertising produces
- The lack of benefits to individuals, groups, communities, and society at large compared to the harms