EU commissioner promises to get tough on online targeting

EUROPE-- The European Union's consumer commissioner has threatened to get tough with internet companies that do not do enough to protect consumers' privacy.

Meglena Kuneva's comments came in a strongly worded speech at a debate on online data collection attended by representatives of Google, Microsoft, Amazon, the World Federation of Advertisers and a host of other internet businesses.

She said: “If we fail to see an adequate response to consumers' concerns on the issue of data collection and profiling, as a regulator we will not shy away from our duties nor wait for a cataclysm to wake us up.

“Today I want to send one very clear message to those involved in all aspects of the digital world - consumer rights must adapt to technology, not be crushed by it. The

current situation with regard to privacy, profiling and targeting is not satisfactory.”

Kuneva, who last year warned that online data collection was “out of control”, said the challenge was to apply existing principles of consumer policy to new technologies, “maintaining traditional boundaries of what is right and what is not”.

She called for a “much-needed discussion” on “the new generation of practices and business models built on the ability to profile consumers and then use their profile to target them for commercial purposes”.

The use of profiling, she said, meant that even the collection of ‘anonymous' data could put individuals' privacy at risk. “Consumer policy needs to address the fact that users have a profile and can be commercially targeted based on that profile, even if no one knows their actual name,” she said.

The commissioner argued that current data collection methods violated basic consumer rights and set out her vision of how the industry should proceed.

“We must establish the principles of transparency, clear language, opt-in or opt-out

options that are meaningful and easy to use,” she said. “I am talking about the right to have a

stable contract and the right to withdraw. And I am also talking about fair clauses and the right to participate in economic activity without selling your whole self indiscriminately as commercial fodder to the entire world.”

Author: James Verrinder