European Union data privacy rules forcing companies such as Google Inc. (GOOG) and Yahoo! Inc. to seek consent before targeting users with online advertising may sow confusion because of national differences in the way they are applied.
A day before countries are meant to put in place a 2009 law including restrictions on so-called cookies, industry groups and lawyers say it’s unclear how the rules will be implemented across the 27-nation region.
“What we see is that the member states transpose it in a totally fragmented manner,” said Kimon Zorbas, vice-president of IAB Europe, a digital advertising group whose members include Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) The law’s text, which is a mixture of old and amended articles, is “quite messy” which in turn “brings huge legal uncertainty in the markets and nervousness” as to which rights apply when doing business across the EU, he said.
The EU is cracking down on companies invading Web users’ privacy, by promising people more control over their data and harsher sanctions, including criminal penalties, against violations. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Facebook Inc., the top social-networking service, are among several Internet companies under scrutiny for possible privacy-rule breaches.
Under the new e-privacy law, technology companies will be obliged to get user consent whenever they want to store or access data on a computer for a service the user hasn’t explicitly requested. The consent requirement affects the use of cookies, which are small data files that track browsing habits and can help online advertisers figure out which ads work with which Internet users.
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Source: bloomberg.com
By: Stephanie Bodoni
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