Targeting: LinkedIn limits targeted advertising after civil rights complaint
LinkedIn no longer displays advertisements based on particularly sensitive personal data of users. Civil rights activists criticized a violation of EU law.
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With immediate effect, LinkedIn will no longer allow advertisers worldwide to target users in the European Economic Area (EEA) with ads that the platform operator would otherwise display based on profiling, including particularly sensitive personal data such as sexual preferences, political views or ethnicity. This was announced by the civil rights organization European Digital Rights (EDRi) on Friday. In February, together with the Gesellschaft fĂĽr Freiheitsrechte (GFF), Global Witness and Bits of Freedom, it filed a complaint against Microsoft's social network for a potential violation of the Digital Services Act (DSA) due to its targeting practices.
During the negotiations on the DSA, a cross-party coalition of MEPs and civil rights activists pushed for a general ban on "spying advertising" with microtargeting. Although the legislator did not go that far, it did prohibit the use of the categories specifically protected by the General Data Protection Regulation. LinkedIn now wants to comply with this ban. EDRi policy advisor Jan Penfrat welcomed the announcement as "a win for privacy and better protection for people against targeted discrimination based on their sensitive characteristics". The case shows that the DSA can work if the EU Commission processes the evidence provided by civil society as quickly and effectively as it did here.
Members worldwide should benefit from the new course
Tech companies should comply with the Platform Act from the outset, emphasized Svea Windwehr from the GFF. However, the help of a vigilant civil society is obviously needed when it comes to "holding the online companies covered by the DSA to account and enforcing European law". Nienke Palstra from Global Witness appealed to LinkedIn to extend the new line against "the worst forms of surveillance advertising" to its members worldwide and not to limit it to Europe. Targeting based on other categories of personal data remains possible on the platform, which is estimated to have increased its global advertising revenue by a good ten percent year-on-year to almost 4 billion US dollars in 2023 and is on course for further growth in 2024.
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