Improving Privacy Protection in the Area of Behavioural Targeting

Behavioural targeting, or online profiling, is at the core of many privacy problems on the Internet. Behavioural targeting involves monitoring peopleè^--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. Firms compile detailed profiles, based on what internet users read, what videos they watch, what they search for, etc. People have little control over what happens to information concerning them. There is wide agreement that EU data protection law è^' and similar regimes in countries worldwide è^' offers insufficient protection of privacy on the internet.