A series of complaints targeting user information gatherers, data brokers, and third party users of that information could portend a tsunami bearing down on the adtech industry. In what could be the first test of whether GDPR enforcement is going to have any teeth or just be an annoyance for Web site owners who aren’t necessarily selling anything, the complaints brought by Privacy International against seven companies could result in billions of dollars in fines.
Industry spokesmen are whining that draconian fines could destroy the adtech industry and that could be bad for consumers. Left unsaid is how not having our private and sensitive information collected, collated, and sold is “bad” for us.
The argument, I suppose, is that content on the Web is largely paid for by advertising and that without adtech the content will disappear. I’m not convinced. Irreal has linked to several studies in the past showing that targeted advertising doesn’t really work for the advertisers, is the source of a huge amount of fraud, and is a major vector of malware. The only ones who appear to reliably benefit from it are those selling it.
The real danger for adtech is that these complaints could be just the beginning. The industry won’t clean up its act unless it’s forced to and hefty fines are probably the best way of doing that. We can expect, therefore, that more complaints will be filed.