Improving privacy protection in the area of behavioural targeting
By: Frederik J. Zuiderveen Borgesius
Series: Information law series -- volume 33; Information law series -- 33.
Publisher: Kluwer Law International
Published: 2015
Place of publication: Alphen aan den Rijn, the Netherlands
Language: eng
Number of pages: 414
ISBN-13: 9789041159908
Copyright date: 2015
Subjects: Law and legislation; Right of Privacy; Data protection
Description: "Behavioural targeting, or online profiling, is at the core of many privacy problems on the Internet. Behavioural targeting involves monitoring people's online behaviour and using the data obtained to expose people to individually targeted advertisements. In the process, firms gather information, store it, analyse it, and disclose it to other firms. Firms compile detailed profiles, based on what Internet users read, what videos they watch, what they search for, etc. People have litlle control over what happens to information concerning them. There is wide agreement that EU data protection law - and similar regimes in countries worldwide - offers insufficient protection of privacy on the Internet. This publication examines how the law could improve online privacy protection, and is among the first legal studies to discuss the implications of behavioural sciences for privacy law. A detailed analysis is presented of the problematic role of informed consent in data protection law, emphasising the tension in the law between protecting and empowering the individual. [...] Given the limited potential of informed consent as a privacy protection measure, the publication argues that policymakers can improve legal privacy protection by focusing less on empowering people and more on protecting people. Practitioners, businesspersons, policymakers, and regulators will find much here to help them develop a more cogent, socially responsible, and reasonable approach to privacy law and policy - not only in Europe but anywhere in the world."
Notes: Based on the author's thesis (doctoral)--Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2014.

Includes bibliographical references (page 321-391) and index.