EU wants to protect consumers from abuse of new technologies

According to European Parliament’s website, intrusive new advertising techniques,  where advertisers pose as consumers on internet forums or abuse data privacy to target individual consumers’ interests, should be tackled by requiring “behavioural advertisement” warnings and encouraging policing by forum moderators, said the Internal Market Committee in an own-initiative report,  that was voted on Monday

The report also expresses concerns regarding  “the routine use of behavioural advertising and the development of intrusive advertising practices”, such as third parties who read private emails or use social networks and geolocation to tailor advertising to individual consumers’ interests. The Committee considers such advertising constitutes “an attack on the protection of privacy when it involves tracking individuals”.

The euro-politicians ask for an as-fast-as-possible insertion of a readable mention “behavioural advertisement” for the relevant online advertisements, along with explanations regarding these practices.

Also, the report blames the development of the “hidden” internet advertising that might mislead consumers and also ruin a company’s reputation. The recommendation for the EU member states is to encourage the emergence of forum observers/moderators who are alert to the dangers of hidden advertising.

The document also calls on developing of a website labelling system to certify sites’ standard of data protection and to be use on the entire EU territory to get rid the internet of unfair advertising practices.