In spite of all good intentions, the proposed ePrivacy Regulation (ePR) currently being discussed in the European Parliament will irrevocably clutter the field of digital privacy with a wealth of requests for consent that will result in users becoming just as blind to the content as they are to the current Cookie-acceptance popup.
There is no debate that your digital communication must be confidential and no one should be allowed to spy on you on the internet. This should not be bundled with an unreasonable insistence on being 100 pct. anonymous when you enter a public area or someone else’s domain.
Just as we don’t expect the clerk at a shoe store to ask for your permission to look at you and determine your age, your gender and what rack of shoes you are looking for before assisting you with your purchase, we shouldn’t be asking an ecommerce store to gain consent for the same level of service. In the proposed ePR legislation, your interest in shoes and your demographical information is being treated with the same sensitivity as your medical prescriptions and history.
Cookies are not dangerous. They cannot contain virus, malware or spy on you. But information about your online behaviour could be used in a way that you are not comfortable with or even to your disadvantage. To protect us from that we recently adopted the General Data Protect Regulation (GDPR) with very strict rules for processing personal data. This new legislation is entering into force in May of next year, and the entire online industry (and all other industries) are already preparing to get ready for the new requirements before the deadline. The fines for neglecting this would be quite staggering.
A positive feature about the GDPR is that it allows for companies to approach their existing customers with direct marketing and to process information about how people use a website in order to present them with related content - including advertising. This happens with all users being clearly informed of any data processing taking place and each user is entitled to detailed insight or to have the information corrected or deleted and to opt-out of any targeted advertising. There are very strict rules for sensitive data such as health or financial information and more flexible rules for processing less sensitive data such as web statistics and profiling user’s interests in products or subjects. This principle is referred to as a risk-based approach, and it makes a lot of sense from the user perspective.
Unfortunately, the proposed ePR legislation has an entirely different approach. It does not differentiate between personal or non-personal data, or between sensitive or non-sensitive information. It requires for a prior explicit consent before any information can be stored.
At first glance, this might seem quite reasonable. After all, why shouldn’t you be asked for permission beforehand if someone wants to process information about you? But the fact is, that it is not always in your best interest. First of all it will annoy the hell out of you to be constantly asked for your consent. No one will read the endless boring information, and everyone will just click yes or no after what seems most convenient in the given situation. And as we get used to saying yes to data processing with almost every single website we use, we will go blind to the actual content that we give our consent to, and the acceptance becomes so routine that we will end up accepting even the data processing where an actual informed consent should be expected.
Objectively what serves us all best is when data is used to provide us with better service, better products, more innovation, and relevant information in a way that respects and protects our privacy. However, realistically you as an individual are not able to determine which data processing would fulfil these requirements all the time. It is impossible for anyone to make an informed decision in all matters.
If you buy a car, you do not need to know how the motor works, the electronics, the airbag, the internal computers and stuff. You want the car manufactures to produce great cars, which live up to strict safety standards defined and audited by experts. The same logic applies to data processing. Let the data controllers (and processors) be responsible. How can this be achieved? The simplest way would be to apply the same legal grounds for data processing in the ePR that we just spent 4 years working on in the GDPR. But that would be almost too easy wouldn’t it?
Originally published on LinkedIn here.
How do advertisers best negotiate a myriad of new considerations for video – from the balance of premium and social to mobile formats, autoplay and the great sound on/sound off debate? We identify the key trends – and the brands getting online video right.
Slides are available here.
The iCEE.fest – Interactive Central and Eastern Europe Festival – held each year in Bucharest, Romania, under the aegis of IAB Europe, is just around the corner. The full list of CONFIRMED SPEAKERS is here.
Check the iCEE.fest 2017 AGENDA
Facebook, Google, The New York Times, AOL, BBC, Groupe Figaro, Unidad Editorial, Endemol Shine Group, Lego, News Deeply, TripAdvisor, Discovery, Xaxis, BBH, Lola Mullen Lowe, Mindshare, Taboola, Shazam, Viber, Social Chain, Studio 71 are just some of the companies that will take the stage on June 15 & 16 at the 6th edition of the festival.
The organizers announced new exciting content streams for this year: Smart Homes and Fin Tech. The content streams are described in the following links:
Starting 2017, the Interactive Central & Eastern Europe concept – more about this, here - amplifies its footprint this year with two new products: iCEE.news the news website dedicated to the digital industry as well as iCEE.academy, the e-learning platform (that will extend in the second half of the year with offline courses, too).
iCEE.fest will be held on June 15-16 and is organized by ThinkDigital Romania, in partnership with Orange and the international support of IAB Europe. The festival is sponsored by Carrefour, BCR, Volkswagen, XAXIS and Ernst & Young.
How to activate my 25% special discount as an IAB Europe member?
Every user will receive the ticket on their email address that you will provide 2 prior to the event. Each ticket you buy means a lot: a part of the value will be redirected for this spectacular project, helping sick kids to discover technology.
Moderated Panel discussion: Understanding why EU privacy policy is now business-critical
European regulators have data-driven advertising squarely in their sights. Privacy activists are winning more and more adherents to the idea that, with online tracking, our industry is on the wrong side of history. How did we get here? What is the way forward, especially as the gulf between Europe’s policy framework and that of the US seems to be widening?
Slides Here.
Moderated panel discussion: Is complexity the enemy of quality in advertising?
In a world of complexity and incompatible standards, how can we get the clear view that we need to drive better advertising? We report on IAB Europe’s Quality Initiative, and explore the implications of new research for the industry’s measurement priorities.
Keynote: Internet of Things: plenty of new digital touch points, or the end of advertising as we know it? Stephan Noller, Managing Director, uBirch
Slides HERE.
Measuring the future, by Gian Fulgoni, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder, ComScore
Arguably measurement is online’s key differentiator to other media. Yet is it also an Achilles’ heel? Is the increasing complexity and ever changing landscape making it too difficult for brand advertisers to fully control their brand experience? What can the digital industry do to bring trust and transparency easily to all?
Slides HERE.
1% Done: Building a collaborative future for mobile by Nicola Mendelsohn, VP EMEA Facebook
As the medium becomes the message, what role can brand content play in delivering value? Facebook’s VP EMEA asks what consumers want from brands in a mobile-first world – and how marketers can respond whilst building ROI.
Slides HERE.
Innovation, For Everyone by Matt Brittin, President EMEA, Business & Operations
In a fast-changing world, Google’s Matt Brittin shares why sustainability and partnerships are critical for innovation.
Slides HERE.
Delivery Chain Quality by John Montgomery, VP Global Brand Safety, GroupM
Advertisers have lost confidence in the digital delivery supply chain. But how much of the problem is due to the relentless pressure to deliver ever-lower campaign CPMs? And are CPMs even the right cost-efficiency benchmark to use? John thinks they may be a big part of the quality problem.
Slides HERE.
Video & TV Advertising: State of the convergence by Nicolas Mignot, SVP International Key accounts Sales & Solutions, FreeWheel
What happens when digital, programmatic and TV collide? Nicolas Mignot will ask what the future holds for the original video channel, and what addressable TV means for its role in media strategies.
Slides HERE.
The Agency of the Future by Anatoly Roytman, Managing Director and EALA Lead, Accenture Interactive
Agency business models have always evolved – but that evolution needs to catch up quickly with the ecosystem of 2017. Demands for trading transparency and measurement clarity demand a redefinition of what agencies are paid for – and how that performance is measured. Dependence on new technology platforms and the importance of data ownership bring new commercial considerations with them. What does a sustainable and correctly incentivised agency model look like?
Slides HERE.
