Europe Charges the UK with Infringement of Online Privacy Rulesemarketer.com Friday, October 1, 2010
Posted By: Karin von Abrams
The European Commission (EC) is taking the UK government to the European Court of Justice for its failure to comply with regional legislation on internet privacy.
This is the latest installment in the long saga of BT (formerly British Telecom) and its trials of behavioral targeting in selected areas of the UK in 2006 and 2007. Unbeknownst to internet users in these areas, BT collaborated with targeting company Phorm to collect online browsing data. This information was used to select ads for delivery to individual computers. After many complaints, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (the country’s personal data protection authority) began an investigation into the country’s monitoring and handling of such incidents in April 2009.
Its conclusion: no laws had been broken by BT or Phorm. But that judgment implied another question: were UK laws on internet privacy sufficient? The EC has said no—that the UK does not comply with European Union rules, specifically the ePrivacy Directive and the Data Protection Directive, which state that a person’s consent to interception of their communications must be a “freely given, specific and informed indication of a person’s wishes,” rather than a default presumption. The EC is also concerned that the UK has no national body to deal with such matters of communications interception and related complaints.
In October 2009, the EU Telecoms Commissioner asked the UK to amend its national laws to ensure compliance with regional ones. This has not happened; hence the court summons.
Advertisers and marketers are not directly affected by the legal proceedings. The court case relates to actions that only the government can take; moreover, the EC is not aiming to prohibit behavioral targeting, but to ensure that consumers are notified that targeting is taking place, or may take place, and that they are able to manage their own exposure to it.
But the EC’s move serves to remind the industry that it must “bite the bullet” on behavioral targeting and institute transparent practices that will allay consumer worries. Several recent studies have revealed significant levels of concern among web users. Earlier this year, for example, a survey by the Financial Times and Harris found that 52% of UK internet users said they were somewhat or very concerned about personal data accessible to the search engines they used.
Transparency is especially important in a world where mobile, online and broadcast channels are converging. A growing number of people in the UK are communicating, searching, viewing and sharing content, playing games, shopping and transacting across multiple screens and platform providers—who naturally want to monetize the user data they capture. It has never been more vital to reassure consumers that their privacy is respected.
As new media age magazine points out, the digital industry is already developing, in consultation with the European Union, “a pan-European self-regulatory framework for behavioral ad targeting.” In the UK, the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has issued Good Practice Principles and launched a website, Your Online Choices, to explain the principles of digital data collection and consumers’ options.
Marketers should make sure that they too are fully informed about how their ads are targeted and whether those techniques pose any potential issues for consumers. As the industry moves on from the early days of opt-in email newsletters, and ad-serving technology permits ever-subtler pinpointing of specific audiences, advertisers and brands can gain respect and loyalty if they are seen to acknowledge and act on consumer concerns.
