EU Privacy Strategy Is Still A Complete Mess

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal piece on user privacy in Europe was again a timely piece on the continuing mess that is the EU's political strategy on user privacy. The directive passed down by the commission has become like most EU initiatives a total mess. How it is interpreted might well cause a complete fragmentation of the online market across Europe. The Germans are looking to push the "hard opt-in" policy. The UK, which has always been suspicious of Europe's tinkering, will probably go for a soft opt-out or even a self -regulatory route. Sensible as ever.

But the WSJ is now suggesting that the hardened EU policy of killing the cookie off for good seems to be thawing out. EU commissioner, Neelie Kroes, aware that a disjointed privacy law across Europe could affect the growth of the online industry is now speaking about self-regulation in the online advertising industry. In fairness, I think the change of heart has been down to some serious lobbying on the part of the European advertising industry. Heavy hitters like Google and WPP have been engaging the commission hard over the past couple of months.

The proposal to label all behavioural targeted ads with icon has also won favour with the EU. There will be a final proposal on Dec 16 - with Kroes deliberations arriving in the New Year. She has to be careful, as the UK and France are determined not to kill off their nascent digital media industry - and will be reluctant to enact legislation that insists on heavy opt-ins.

Let's be clear, the industry is still clueless on the new EU directive - not helped by typical EU bureaucratic double speak. Ms Kroes needs to take a sensible route here, and make sure she shadows US online privacy. Heavy-handed self-regulation would probably be the best solution - and would limit the damage to our industry. ExchangeWire's next event, The Data Economy, will be covering this very legislation - and will hopefully provide a better overview on how this will impact on the online advertising industry.