CCC & Co. demand ban on tracking and personalized advertising

Personalized advertising with tracking, profiling or behavioural analysis is to be banned in the EU. The Chaos Computer Club (CCC), Wikimedia, the Forum InformatikerInnen für Frieden und gesellschaftliche Verantwortung (FIfF), Germanwatch and the think tank Neue Ökonomie advocate such a ban in a position paper published on Wednesday. Targeted advertising is "a dangerous manipulation mechanism that must not be normalized", they emphasize. This harms the individual and society as a whole. Fairness towards users and their fundamental rights should no longer be undermined by such"surveillance advertising".

"If digital services are financed almost exclusively through personalized advertising, this poses considerable risks to democracy, social cohesion, informational self-determination, the climate and national security," argue the civil society organizations (NGOs). Those who provide digital advertising space are currently generally using detailed information to assess the behavior of individual users. The aim of this research is to offer advertisers tailor-made marketing.

The required personal information is usually collected via websites, apps and other online offerings, even across different devices and over long periods of time, and used as a basis for auctioning advertising space in real time. Data traders sell the collected information, including location data, which can be used to spy on cell phone users and US military and NATO bases in this country.

Hope for a law for digital fairness

According to the NGOs, a meta-study has shown that tracking-based advertising through the use of digital media is associated with social polarization and a loss of trust in institutions. Target groups such as "German military", "judges" or "politicians" could be used to track and manipulate decision-makers, which poses an additional security risk. Users are unable to understand where their data is collected, stored and analyzed, while some tech companies dominate the market. Finally, data hunting is responsible for a significant proportion of the rapidly increasing energy consumption via the internet.

During the debate on the Digital Services Act (DSA), a cross-party coalition, civil rights activists and parts of the SME sector were already pushing for a broad ban on "spying advertising". Ultimately, however, it was only enough to ban targeted advertising aimed at minors. In addition, sensitive data such as sexual orientation, religion and ethnicity may not be used for personalized advertising on large platforms.

In a recent report on "digital fairness", the EU Commission criticized marketers for using targeting to "capitalize on personal problems, financial difficulties or an unstable mental state". A "Digital Fairness Act" is intended to counteract this in the future. According to the CCC & Co., a good starting point for implementing the required ban.

(mki)