Improving Privacy Protection in the Area of Behavioural Targeting

This new book provides you with a highly readable overview of the policy issues underlying behavioural targeting, and explains how the law could improve on privacy protection.

The problem

At the core of many privacy problems on the Internet, behavioural targeting – or online profiling – 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.

There is wide agreement that EU data protection law – and similar regimes in countries worldwide – offers insufficient protection of privacy on the internet.

The answer

This new work 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.

You’ll find a practical, in-depth study of how the law could improve empowerment and protection of the individual, with a full discussion of the challenges involved.

The author provides an overview of what data protection protects, and why. He addresses whether data protection should apply to behavioural targeting, and discusses the economics of behavioural targeting.

The work analyses the problematic role of informed consent in data protection law, emphasizing the tension in the law between protecting and empowering the individual.

Comprehensive coverage includes:

• the privacy implications of behavioural targeting

• the data protection rules that apply to behavioural targeting

• the scope of the personal data definition

• the role of informed consent in data protection law

• the policy implications of insights from behavioural studies

• the drawbacks of using informed consent as a privacy protection measure.

How will this book help you?

• Studies the ways in which privacy law could be improved – so that you have all the knowledge you need to proceed

• Provides an in-depth description of how behavioural targeting works – so you can evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of regulatory strategies to protect privacy on the internet

• Analyses the role of informed consent in privacy and data protection law – all the information you need

• Shows you how economics, behavioural sciences, and computer science can inform regulation

Who should read this book?

This is one of the first books to discuss the implications of economic and behavioural research for data protection policy. It will help practitioners, business people, policymakers, and regulators to develop a more cogent, socially responsible, and reasonable approach to privacy law and policy – not only in Europe, but anywhere in the world.

Features:

• Important study of ways in which privacy law could be improved.

• Among the first books to discuss the implications of economic and behavioural research for data protection policy.

• An in-depth description of how behavioural targeting works.

• Detailed analysis of the role of informed consent in privacy and data protection law.

Benefits:

• Evaluates strengths and weaknesses of regulatory strategies to protect privacy on the internet.

• Shows how economics, behavioural sciences, and computer science can inform regulation.