Brussels, 30/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - Consumer organisations on both sides of the Atlantic do not intend to stand idly by whilst the social network Facebook proceeds with its plan of collecting the browsing activities of internet users in order to carry out targeted advertising campaigns. Hence the offensive launched on Wednesday 30 July, calling on the competent regulatory authorities in the United States and Ireland to oblige Facebook to suspend this project, which was announced on 12 June and which, if implemented, would infringe EU consumers' right to privacy.
Alarmed at the prospect, the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD), which represents consumer organisations in both the United States and Europe, wrote to Edith Ramirez, chair of the Federal Trade Commission, and to Billy Hawkes, Irish Data Protection Commissionner.
“Consumer organisations in both the United States and Europe are extremely concerned. We are calling for regulatory intervention against what appears to be an unprecedented invasion of the privacy of online users. The letter has also been sent to the Irish Data Protection Commissioner, because the European headquarters of Facebook is in Ireland and, consequently, that is where citizens of the member states of the EU must take any issues concerning their rights to the protection of their personal data and privacy under European law”, explained John Phelan of BEUC, the European consumer Association.
This situation is particularly worrying as “Facebook already installs cookies and pixel tags on users' computers” and “if Facebook is permitted to extend its data collection practices, these cookies and pixel tags will also track users' browsing activity on any website that contains a few lines of Facebook code”, says the TACD letter.
“We urge you to act immediately to notify the company that it must suspend this proposed change in business practices to determine whether it complies with current US and EU law.” TACD also calls for the findings to be published “so that your investigations can be subject to a public assessment and review”, the letter reads.
The signatories stress that TACD has long “advocated for the privacy of consumers on both sides of the Atlantic to be respected and safeguarded”, and that, in 2011, it adopted a resolution on behavioural advertising, calling on the regulators from both the EU and the US to protect consumer privacy, “including investigate and take regulatory action to address new threats to consumer privacy from the growth of real-time tracking and sales of information about
The Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue is a forum created in September 1998 to represent consumer interests in relations between the European Union and the United States. (AN)