2022 put the spotlights in Europe on Digital Advertising Technology. In January, the French Data Protection Authority (DPA) hit Facebook and Google with significant fines for luring consumers into consenting to the use of their personal data, going against the national data protection rulebook. Less than a month later, the Belgium DPA followed by declaring Europe’s most used consent system incompatible with EU privacy rules. A big win for data protection advocates who saw their concerns on lacking safeguards being acknowledged.
In the meantime, Google is harvesting success with its proposals to steer towards targeting with less data collection, having already acquired the approval of the UK competition authority. Will this in the end actually promote privacy or are the publisher’s concerns on the consequent increase of market power legitimate?
And what to expect from the European Commission’s antitrust enforcers? Commissioner Vestager started mid 2021 formal investigations into the digital advertising market, following telling studies from her Australian and UK peers on market dominance and potential abuse. Will the EC investigation be sufficient and lead to effective remedies? Or do we risk lengthy enforcement procedures like we’ve seen with Google Shopping? And what to expect from the joint investigation of the EU Commission and the UK CMA into the Jedi Blue deal.
At last, legislators are working on new rules for digital markets. The EU Digital Markets Act (DMA) holds the potential to achieve better enforcement of personal data protection and power abuse via deterring fines. What can the DMA entail in this regard and where do negotiations stand?
Join us on March 22 from 17h00 to 18h00 CET with high-level speakers to discuss “How to deal with AdTech?”
