Online Behavioral Advertising: The European Union Controversy

On June 24, 2010, the European Union's body that addresses data protection issues, the so-called Article 29 Working Party, adopted Opinion 2/2010 (the “Opinion”) providing further clarification on the amended e-Privacy Directive (below) as applied to online behavioral advertising. The Working Party also issued a press release on this topic.

Although the scope of the Opinion is limited to online profiling, its interpretation of Article 5(3) of the amended e-Privacy Directive provides some useful clarifications regarding the legal framework applicable to online behavioral advertising and the use of cookies. There has been much heat generated by the Directive and the Opinion, and little light. Our friends at Osborne Clarke have published an excellent overview.

Read Regulating Online Behavioural Advertising for some insight into the discussion. U.S.-based online businesses will need to start paying close attention to this - the global nature of the Internet means that the actions of the Article 29 Working Party will have significant ripple effects here.