In the United States, a new bill aimed at banning targeted advertising has something to shake the giants of Meta and Google. It would drastically limit how tech companies serve ads to their users, banning the use of their personal data entirely.
A text supported by many entities
Baptized Banning Surveillance Advertising Act, the text is carried by deputies Anna Eshoo and Jan Schakowsky in the House of Representatives and by Senator Cory Booker. ” Legislation prohibits advertising enablers (e.g. Facebook, Google DoubleClick, data brokers) from targeting ads except for broad location targeting to a recognized location (e.g. a municipality) “, is it explained in a press release.
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Thus, targeted advertisements based on ” protected class information, such as race, gender, and religion, and personal data purchased from data brokers would be banned if the bill were passed.
The text is supported by many companies, academics and organizations, specifies Vice. This is particularly the case of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the search engine DuckDuckGo, the provider of services focused on privacy Proton or Shoshana Zuboff, author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, and Joan Donovan, senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.
Targeted advertising is at the heart of Facebook’s business model. Photography: Greg Bulla / Unsplash
An economic model favoring misinformation ” and ” discrimination »
Californian elected official Anna Eshoo denounces the terribly harmful effects of targeted advertising which, in addition to leading to the surveillance of Internet users, has real repercussions on society. ” The business model of “surveillance advertising” relies on the improper collection and accumulation of personal data to enable targeted advertising. This pernicious practice allows online platforms to hunt user engagement at a high cost to our society, and it fuels misinformation, discrimination, voter suppression, abuse of privacy, and so many other harms. “, she says
Targeted advertising is at the heart of the business model of digital behemoths like Google and Facebook, and they claim that this method is beneficial to companies but also to users because they receive advertising specific to their areas of interest. To achieve this, however, it is necessary to collect a large amount of personal data about individuals, subjecting them to possible thefts or hacks.
” The primary economic function of surveillance advertising is to enrich adtech at the expense of publishers, consumers, and advertisers themselves, and it’s high time Congress intervened. Banning surveillance advertising will protect individual privacy, reduce incentives for companies to maximize invasive data collection, and spur innovation by unleashing the potential of the digital contextual advertising industry that has been held back by dominant surveillance advertising platforms says Nathalie Maréchal, Senior Policy and Partnerships Officer at Ranking Digital Rights, an organization that works to promote freedom of expression and privacy on the internet.
US authorities raise their voices
Of course, the legislation still has to go through many stages and it is not certain that it will finally be adopted. If so, however, it would empower the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state attorneys general to enforce violations, with fines of up to $5,000 per incident for willful violations. The Banning Surveillance Advertising Act demonstrates the ambition of the American authorities who seem, more than ever, to want to regulate their technological giants much more strictly.