ePrivacy Regulation
France spanks Google $170M, Facebook $68M over cookie consent dark patterns
Chalk another one up for decentralized enforcement: France’s data protection watchdog has slapped headline-grabbing fines on Facebook and Google for failing to respect local (and pan-EU) cookie consent rules. Today,…
MEPs back limits on Big Tech’s ability to set self-serving defaults
The European Parliament has agreed its negotiating position on draft legislation to put limits on how Big Tech can operate with the aim of rebooting competition and fair dealing in…
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Digging into Google’s push to freeze ePrivacy
Google has responded to allegations contained in a recently unsealed US antitrust lawsuit that it worked covertly to stall European Union privacy legislation that could have blasted a huge hole in its behaviorial advertising business. Per the US states’ suit, a couple of years after a European Commission proposal to update the EU’s ePrivacy Directive…
Europe needs to back browser-level controls to fix cookie consent nightmares, says privacy group
European privacy group noyb, which recently kicked off a major campaign targeting rampant abuse of the region’s cookie consent rules, has followed up by publishing a technical proposal for an…
Apple takes aim at adtech hysteria over iOS app tracking change
Apple has used a speech to European lawmakers and privacy regulators today to come out jabbing at what SVP Craig Federighi described as dramatic, “outlandish” and “false” claims being made…
German federal court squashes consent opt-outs for non-functional cookies
Yet another stake through the dark-patterned heart of consentless online tracking. Following a key cookie consent ruling by Europe’s top court last year, Germany’s Federal Court (BGH) has today handed…
Cookie consent still a compliance trash fire in latest watchdog peek
The latest confirmation of the online tracking industry’s continued flouting of EU privacy laws which — at least on paper — are supposed to protect citizens from consent-less digital surveillance…
Europe’s top court says active consent is needed for tracking cookies
Europe’s top court has ruled that pre-checked consent boxes for dropping cookies are not legally valid. Consent must be obtained prior to storing or accessing non-essential cookies, such as tracking…
Most EU cookie ‘consent’ notices are meaningless or manipulative, study finds
New research into how European consumers interact with the cookie consent mechanisms which have proliferated since a major update to the bloc’s online privacy rules last year casts an unflattering…
EU gov’t and public health sites are lousy with adtech, study finds
A study of tracking cookies running on government and public sector health websites in the European Union has found commercial adtech to be operating pervasively even in what should be…
A privacy complaint targeting the behavioral advertising industry has a new piece of evidence that shows the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) shedding doubt on whether it’s possible to obtain informed consent from…
ePrivacy: An overview of Europe’s other big privacy rule change
Gather round. The EU has a plan for a big update to privacy laws that could have a major impact on current Internet business models. Um, I thought Europe just…
