An alliance of news publishers has claimed that new changes to European Union privacy laws will “potentially kill” their businesses, and give too much power to Google, Apple, and Facebook.
The group of news publishers, which includes the Financial Times, Guardian, Le Monde, Spiegel, Telegraph, Daily Mail, and Les Echoes, according to the Guardian, “have signed a letter to the European parliament, which is deliberating proposals to tighten up how data is gathered and used by web companies.”
“The publishers argue that new regulations relating to ‘cookies’ – small files that remember users’ digital habits, therefore, allowing the targeting of relevant ads – could cut off their ability to build digital revenue,” the Guardian reported. “Currently, when users visit an individual website or app they are asked if they will consent to a cookie tracking them. Under the European Commission’s plans, consumers will in the future instead be asked to make a single choice to accept, or reject, cookies from all websites and apps only on one single occasion on their phone or browser.”
They continued to argue that by creating a single “switch”, users will most likely take “the simplest route of opting out of all cookies, leaving them with scant information to support their targeted advertising models.”
“In turn, this would leave the few digital giants used by most consumers to access the web, and those like Facebook that have their own giant data mining capability, in control,” they claimed.
In the open letter, the news publishers explained why this law change would not affect the largest companies, such as Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft, who all have their own advanced ways of obtaining data.
“Given that 90% of [digital] usage across Europe is concentrated in the hands of just four companies: Google, Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla, this [proposal]… has the potential to exacerbate the asymmetry of power between individual publishers and these global digital gateways,” the companies declared. “The current ePrivacy proposals will result in the data of European digital citizens being concentrated in the hands of a few global companies, as a result of which digital citizens will become less protected. It will give those global companies a tighter grip on the personal data of European digital citizens.”
“The practice of serving relevant advertising to readers is now an established norm in the advertising industry, and is essential to ensure that publishers can compete with Google and Facebook who already control 20% of total global advertising spend,” they continued. “If as a result of these proposals news publishers were unable to serve relevant advertising to our readers, this would reduce our ability to compete with the capabilities of dominant digital platforms for digital advertising revenues, ultimately undermining our ability to invest in high-quality journalism across Europe.”
The Commission’s ePrivacy proposals will make it more difficult to ensure transparency… and remove any distinction between publishers who place a high value on trust of their users, and those who do not…
Citizens are rightly concerned about the use of their personal data by third-party companies of whom they have never heard, and have no idea about the role that they play in their digital lives online… [But] the commission’s proposals threaten to prevent news organisations from delivering basic functionality such as the marketing of products and services, the tailoring of news products to the needs and desires of news consumers, and relevant and acceptable advertising.
Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington or like his page at Facebook.
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