Appeals court confirms that tracking-based online advertising is illegal in Europe

The Belgian Court of Appeal ruled today that the transparency and approval framework (TCF) is currently used as a basis for most of the illegal online ads in the European Union. This decision supports the results of the Belgian Data Protection Authority since 2022 that technology that supports online advertisements violates many principles of general data protection regulations, a digital privacy law for the European Union that entered in 2018.

Daniel Cooper of Engadget has written a comprehensive explanation of the various systems that support the current ecosystems system for online advertising, a valuable reading of anyone who spends time online. The very simplified version is that advertisers participate in giving bidding in actual time (RTB) to show their content online. Currently, these offers are based on the information collected from tracking individuals ’activities online using cookies. TCF was created by the Interactive Advertising Office as a way to unify how web sites are requested from users to obtain permission. Resolution 2022 decided that the approval collected by TCF and the data collected in the RTB process was illegal under GDP.

“A court decision today shows that the approval system used by Google, Amazon, X and Microsoft, deceives hundreds of millions of Europeans,” said Dr. Johnny Ryan, Director of Enforcement of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, which leads the legal accusation against the current approach to advertising technology. “The technology industry has sought to hide its wide violation of the data behind the approval of the Sham.

It seems that the Iab Europe reaction, which made the call, is often comfortable that it has not been found responsible for the data collected by TCF. “The market Court rejected the APD view that Iab Europe is a joint control unit with TCF participants for its own processing of personal data, for example for the purpose of digital advertising,” says the organization’s statement. Iab Europe notes that it has already suggested changes to TCF better reflecting “limited monitoring” and submitting it to the Belgian Data Protection Authority. The group faced fines and ordered the rebuilding of its current working framework for the announcement as a result of the original decision.

We have also contacted some of the main advertisers who use RTB technology to comment on the ruling.

Although this seems to be a great victory for privacy attorneys and Internet users in the European Union, it is not clear exactly what the next steps will be for advertisers and advertising technology systems. Most likely, the organizers will supervise the changes made by Iab Europe to TCF, so the popup may not be the approval of something from the past.