EDRi: Ad-tech considered harmful

With financial support of the NLnet and Vietsch Foundation the European digital rights organization released a guide book how 'ad-tech' works - and what pending European policy can do to prevent its risks for society and online freedom. The new guide book "Targeted Online" points to the significant risks of online tracking to citizens, and explores how upcoming EU law could help prevent unwanted side-effects like the spread of misinformation and online polarization. In "Targeted Online" the authors highlight several other problematic issues, such as that unlike in traditional media today's machinery runs ads on extremist and disinformation websites (essentially turning that into a profit-making business), categorizes survivors of sexual abuse and people with mental health issues and shares personal information with state actors which has led to the arrest of vulnerable communities (such as undocumented migrants) as well as surveil religious minorities. To ensure that advertisers and service providers make this necessary switch, EDRi along with the European Data Protection Survivor and a broad coalition of European Parliament-members argue for phasing out targeted based on invasive tracking. According to the report, upcoming European policies like the Digital Services Act and the ePrivacy Regulation can be the perfect tools to reconstruct ad-tech so that it serves instead of harms its audience. NLnet supports the urgent need of EDRi to share knowledge of pervasive surveillance and how upcoming European regulation can prevent exploitative monopolistic practices that polarize online interaction, spread disinformation and put minorities and other vulnerable groups in danger.