The revision of the “private life and electronic communications” directive is causing concern among newspaper publishers. In a letter published on Monday 29 May, several major groups asserted that this text, particularly the new provisions on cookies, puts their economic model in danger.
The letter is co-signed by the owners of 33 European daily newspapers, including The Guardian, The Daily Mail, Le Monde and Die Zeit.
The co-signatories of this open letter regret that this project, “denies newspaper editors the chance to inform their readers about the reasons why their consent is requested or explain the advantages of journalistic content and personalised marketing, as well as the importance of subscriptions and advertising in the economic model of a quality press”.
It should be recalled that the draft regulation presented on 10 January stipulates that electronic communications should be entirely confidential, unless the users have agreed for their data to be processed, by granting their prior consent (see EUROPE 11700).
In their letter, the newspaper editors particularly target the new provisions on cookies. These tracking tools help monitor consumer choice and behaviour. Under these new rules, users will now be able to introduce default browser parameters (rather than the individual websites) to reject the said cookies.
The newspaper editors are concerned that this provision will have a negative impact on advertising because the vast majority of users will rejected the cookies and subsequently the targeted advertising. According to the publishers, this will reduce their ability to compete with dominant platforms such as Google and Facebook, which, in 2017, take 20% of all global spending on advertising.
As we went to press, an exchange of views was due to begin at the legal affairs committee (JURI). In total, three committees have been consulted for their opinion: ITRE (industry), IMCO (internal market) and JURI. The civil liberties, justice and home affairs committee (LIBE) is responsible and the rapporteur is Marju Lauristin (S&D, Estonia). (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)