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Online advertising in Europe is now worth €36.2bn. According to figures from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Europe, it grew by 13.1% in 2015, overtaking the TV market, which is worth €33.3bn.  

Within this, behavioural – or interest-based – advertising, which uses web-browsing activity such as pages viewed, searches made and clicked ads to make advertising more relevant to users’ interests and preferences, is big business. Since the end of 2014, there has been a 66% rise in the number of video campaigns being targeted according to behavioural patterns.  

Personalisation is, on the face of it, beneficial to both advertisers and consumers; it can make display advertising budgets work harder, as ads are more likely to be served only to the target market. According to IAB UK’s senior programmes manager, Dee Frew, a poll in 2013 showed that 70% of people preferred advertising content to be tailored to their specific circumstances.  

But reactions to personalisation ...