Open Letter to EU and US policymakers

Wednesday June 23rd 2021

Call to action against surveillance-based advertising
Surveillance-based advertising permeates the internet today, creating a number of highly
problematic issues for both consumers and for businesses. We are writing to you in order to ask foraction on this issue on both sides of the Atlantic. In the EU, we urge you to consider a ban on
surveillance-based advertising as a part of the Digital Services Act. In the US, we urge legislators toenact comprehensive privacy legislation.

We are a broad coalition of consumer rights organizations, civil rights groups, NGOs, and academics
who share a number of concerns regarding the surveillance-based business model fuelling themajority of online advertising. In order to individualize and personalize digital advertising, we haveseen the rise of a surveillance economy where everything consumers do is being tracked both online
and offline, aggregated and shared.

The surveillance economy is sometimes erroneously presented as a trade-off, where consumers
allow companies to track them in order to receive access to digital content. As the attached report by
the Norwegian Consumer Council shows, a majority of consumers do not wish to be tracked online.
However, the ubiquity of commercial surveillance means that it is practically impossible to avoid
being tracked, profiled and targeted.

In addition to the clear privacy issues caused by surveillance-based advertising, systematiccommercial surveillance also gives rise to and exacerbates a number of other problematic practices.
As shown in the attached report, the surveillance-based advertising model facilitates systemic
manipulation and discrimination, poses serious national security risks, funds disinformation andfraud, while also undermining competition and taking revenue away from content creators. Thisharms consumers and businesses, and can undermine the cornerstones of democracy.

Although we recognize that advertising is an important source of revenue for content creators andpublishers online, this does not justify the massive commercial surveillance systems set up in
attempts to “show the right ad to the right people”. Other forms of advertising technologies exist,
which do not depend on spying on consumers, and cases have shown that such alternative models
can be implemented without significantly affecting revenue.

There is no fair trade-off in the current surveillance-based advertising system. We encourage you totake a stand and consider a ban of surveillance-based advertising as part of the Digital Services Act inthe EU, and for the U.S. to enact a long overdue federal privacy law.

SignedName of organisations in alphabetical order:
Accountable Tech, USASUFIN, ES
BEUC - the European Consumer Organisation

Department of Nursing and Health Promotion,
OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan / Avdeling forernæring , NODeutsche Vereinigung für Datenschutz, DECDD (Center for Digital Democracy), USDFRI (Föreningen för Digitala Fri- ochRättigheter), SK

Civil Liberties Union for Europe, EU

DefendDigitalMe

CO-CREATE Youth Task Force, NODržavljan D / Citizen D, SI

Common Sense, US

dTest, CZ

Consumer Action, USEDRi (European Digital Rights), EU

Consumer Council Northern Ireland, UK

EKPIZO, GR

Consumer Federation of America (CFA), US

EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center), US

Consumers' Organisation of Macedonia, MK

Eticas Foundation, ES

Consumers' Union of Finland / Kuluttajaliitto –Konsumentförbundet ry, FI

Fairplay, US

Cracked Labs - Institute for Critical DigitalCulture, AT
Data Ethics, DK
Decode Democracy, USFight for the Future, USGhaqda tal-Konsumaturi / Consumers‘
Association Malta, MT
Global Action Plan, UKHomo Digitalis, GR

Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband (VZBV), DE

ICCL (Irish Council for Civil Liberties), IE

5Rights Foundation, UK

KEPKA - Consumers' Protection Center, GR
LPIAA (Latvia Consumer Association), LV

Individual signatures:

New Economics Foundation, UK

Andra Siibak, PhD, Professor of Media Studies,
Institute of Social Studies, University of Tartu, EE

Neytendasamtökin, ISNordic Privacy Center, SE

Aram Sinnreich, Professor, American University
SOC, US

Norwegian Cancer Society / Kreftforeningen, NO

Bår Stenvik, Author, NO

Norwegian Consumer Council /Forbrukerrådet, NO

Bruce Schneier, Fellow and Lecturer, Harvard
Kennedy School, USOpen MIC (Open Media and Information
Companies Initiative), US

Christian Butenschøn, Founder and CEO

ORG (Open Rights Group), UK

Christian Greftegreff Falch, Design Activist,
slikvirkerdet.no, NO

Panoptykon, PL

Dag Hareide, Author, NO

Press Save the Children Youth Association /Press - Redd Barna Ungdom, NO

Douwe Korff, Emeritus Professor of HumanRights and International Law, NL & UK

Privacy International, UKPublic Citizen, USDr. Amandine Garde, Professor of Law,
University of Liverpool, UK

Ranking Digital Rights, USDr. Elinor Carmi, Postdoc Research Associate Digital Media & Society, Liverpool University, UK.

Save the Children Norway / Redd Barna, UK

Dr. Emma Boyland, senior lecturer, Psychology,
University of Liverpool, UK

Selbstbestimmt.Digital, DE
Spoločnosť ochrany spotrebiteľov (S.O.S.)
Sveriges Konsumenter, SE
The Center for Economic Justice, US
The National Association for Heart and Lung
Disorders (LHL) / Landsforeningen for hjerte- og
lungesyke, NO
The Norwegian Council for Mental Health(NCMH) / Rådet for psykisk helse, NO
The Norwegian Diabetes Association /Diabetesforundet, NO
The Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, US
UNICEF Norway, NO
US PIRG, US

Dr. Knut-Inge Klepp, Project Coordinator COCREATE, Norwegian Institute of Public Health,NO
Dr. Mimi Tatlow-Golden, Co-Director, Centre forChildren and Young People’s Wellbeing, TheOpen University, UK
Eivind Arvesen, Group Cyber Security Manager,
NO
Gloria González Fuster, Research Professor, Vrije
Universiteit Brussel (VUB), BEHilde Wisløff Nagell, Tankesmien Agenda, NOIan Brown, Expert
Jef Ausloos, University of Amsterdam (IViR) & KU
Leuven (CiTiP), NL
Johannes Brodwall, Principal software engineer,Sopra Steria, NOJoris Van Hoboken, Professor of Law at the Vrije
Universiteit Brussels (VUB), BE
Mie Oehlenschläger, External Lecturer,
Independent Consultant, Tech & Childhood, DK
Pat Walshe, Privacy Matters, UK
Pia Tesdorf, Dataprotection, Writer & Educator,
DK
Pierre Dewitte, Researcher, KU Leuven Centrefor IT & IP Law – imec, BE
Rie Aleksandra Walle, Educator and privacy &human rights enthusiast, NO
Simen Sommerfelt, Author of book "GDPR ipraksis", NO
Stefania Milan, PhD, Associate Professor of New
Media and Digital Culture, University ofAmsterdam, NL
Trond Arve Wasskog, CTO Bekk Consulting, NO