Online advertising is a multi-billion-dollar global industry, helping support myriad websites, mobile apps, products, and services. But civil society, policymakers, and members of the public are rightly concerned that today’s online behavioral advertising (also known as “programmatic,” “personalized,” or “targeted” advertising) rests on unacceptably intrusive and opaque commercial surveillance that people are all but powerless to escape, at least if they want to participate in digitally-mediated political discourse and economic activity.
Such personalized advertising can result in discrimination and exposure to unwanted or distressing messages, among other harms. Meanwhile, advertisers face fears of brand safety and concerns about what their advertising supports, while publishers struggle with inconsistent sources of revenue.
Ad tech is also an increasingly concentrated industry, in which some of the world’s biggest technology companies are dominant. Global competition regulators are taking note, and online advertising is the subject of investigations, litigation, and other enforcement actions on both sides of the Atlantic.
CDT is working with a broad set of stakeholders to diagnose the specific ailments that plague online advertising, analyze new proposals against long standing human rights principles, and craft an advocacy agenda that promotes human rights, bolsters democracy, and supports legitimate commercial activity and content creation in a transparent and accountable way.
