Europe to ban tracking of web visitors for targeted ads
09 Mar 2011
The way web sites track visitors and tailor ads to their behaviour is about to undergo a big shake-up following howls of protest by privacy groups.
A powerful alliance of privacy and consumer groups has likened behavioural advertising to "being followed by an invisible stalker." Yahoo, Microsoft and Google all use targeted online advertisements.
From 25 May, European laws dictate that "explicit consent" must be gathered from web users who are being tracked via text files called "cookies".
These files are widely used to help users navigate faster around sites they visit regularly.
Businesses are being urged to sort out how they get consent so they can keep on using cookies.
The changes are demanded by the European e-Privacy directive, which comes into force in the UK in late May. The section of the directive dealing with cookies was drawn up in an attempt to protect privacy and, in particular, limit how much use could be made of behavioural advertising.
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