International coalition of consumer groups, digital and civil rights organizations, and data protection experts call for ban on “surveillance-based advertising”
The coalition's call marks an escalation in privacy advocacy: where the Global Privacy Standard unveiled by tech companies, publishers, and advocates in late 2020 sought a browser-level opt-out from data sales, this coalition of consumer groups, digital and civil rights organizations, and data protection experts argues the model itself — advertising built on tracking people — should be prohibited rather than opted out of.
That shift from consent tools to outright bans gained traction fast: Democratic lawmakers translated it into the Banning Surveillance Advertising Act within months of the call, while parallel petitions pressed regulators on adjacent surveillance practices, and European groups later targeted Meta's pay-or-consent scheme at the EDPB level.
First-order effects
Ad-funded platforms whose revenue depends on behavioral targeting now face a coordinated transatlantic advocacy front demanding prohibition of their core business mechanism, not just stricter consent rules for it.
Regulators — notably the FTC and EU data protection authorities — become the immediate addressees, with the coalition supplying them a ready-made legal and rights-based case against surveillance-based advertising.
Second-order effects
The playbook spreads to adjacent surveillance domains: within weeks, 48 civil rights and advocacy groups asked the FTC to ban corporate facial surveillance and continuous monitoring of public space, applying the same ban-first logic beyond ads.
Platforms caught between bans and user resistance are pushed toward paywall alternatives — a path that itself drew opposition when Ekō, noyb, and 26 other organizations urged the EDPB to reject Meta's approach of making EU users pay or consent to being tracked for ads.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, the adtech industry structurally splits between contextual and broad location-based targeting — which even the Banning Surveillance Advertising Act allows — and individual-level behavioral profiling, with the latter facing regulatory extinction market by market.
Privacy advocacy consolidates around prohibition campaigns aimed at regulators rather than consumer-facing opt-out standards, shifting the battleground from browser settings to legislation and enforcement agencies.
The trend: Consumer and civil rights advocacy is moving from opt-out privacy tools toward outright bans on behavioral surveillance, first in advertising and then into adjacent tracking practices, with lawmakers and EU regulators increasingly converting the demands into enforceable rules.
1. Together with 54 public interest groups & 20+ experts we are calling on decisionmakers on both sides of the Atlantic to consider banning surveillance-based advertising. Open letter: https://fil.forbrukerradet.no/ ... #BanSurveillanceAdvertising https://twitter.com/...
1/4 🙅🏾♀️ 80-90% of people online don't want to be spied on for ‘more relevant ads,’ finds @Forbrukerradet's report.🙅🏾♀ ️ Neither do we at @edri, which is why we join over 50 orgs & 20 academics & experts for a transatlantic call to #BanSurveillanceAdvertising. https://www.forbr…
“Time to ban surveillance-based advertising”, new report by the Norwegian Consumer Council published today: https://fil.forbrukerradet.no/ ... 54 public interest groups and 20+ experts want EU and US policymakers to #BanSurveillanceAdvertising. Open letter: https://www.forbrukerr…
5. *Manipulation*: Companies with comprehensive and intimate knowledge about us can target messages in attempts to reach us when we are susceptible, for example to influence elections or to advertise weight loss products, unhealthy food or gambling. https://www.nytimes.com/...
8. *Undermining competition*: The model favours companies that collect & process information across different services and platforms. This makes it difficult for smaller actors ; to compete, & negatively impacts companies that respect consumers' fundamental rights.
I am totally in support of the politics behind this, but I think it's trying to close the stable door long after the horse has bolted... the platform corporations are already working on different methods based around AI, Federated Learning / FLoCs etc. https://www.cigionline.org/…
Just remember: some of the groups who support this effort want to see laws that “Ban surveillance advertising” to ONLY apply to for-profit organizations. There are tons of political non-profits who are massive data brokers, skirting laws & playing by their own dangerous rules.⚖️ …
Was pleased to sign: #BanSurveillanceAdvertising which facilitates systemic manipulation, discrimination, national security risks, disinformation & fraud... takes revenue from content creators... harms consumers & businesses, & can undermine democracy. https://www.forbrukerradet.…
10. *Privacy violations*: The collection & use of personal data is happening with little or no control. Consumers have no way to know what data is collected, who the information is shared with, & how it may be used. https://medium.com/...
9. *Security risks*: When thousands of companies collect and process enormous amounts of personal data, the risk of identity theft, fraud and blackmail increases. NATO has described this data collection as a national security risk. https://stratcomcoe.org/...
7. *Disinformation*: The lack of control over where ads are shown can promote and finance false or malicious content. This also poses significant challenges to publishers and advertisers regarding revenue, reputational damage, and opaque supply chains. https://www.theguardian.com…
We signed this letter calling for a ban on surveillance ads 👇 Our report on the billion-dollar business of surveillance advertising for kids, out last month: https://neweconomics.org/... https://twitter.com/...
6. The opacity & automation of the system increase the risk of *discrimination*, for example by excluding consumers based on income, gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, location, and more. https://edri.org/...
11. A general ban will force many industry actors to change their business models. It would stimulate growth for technologies that respect consumer and fundamental rights. In a longer-term scenario, it would help restore consumer trust in digital services.
2. Why, you ask? @forbrukerradet just published a report outlining the various harms related to this type of advertising, and outlining alternatives: https://www.forbrukerradet.no/ ...
4. The collection and combination of information about us violates our right to privacy, renders us vulnerable to manipulation, discrimination fraud, and more. This harms individuals and society as a whole.
3. To show us “personalised” ads, a massive, commercial surveillance apparatus is set up to collect our personal data from our apps, websites, and connected devices++. See report: https://www.forbrukerradet.no/ ...
Key impacts identified include misinformation, discrimination, misinformation, undermining competition, security risks, and privacy violations. Full report and more details available below. https://www.forbrukerradet.no/ ...
The letter is signed by major EU/US consumer groups and other organizations (BEUC, CFA, EDRi, EPIC, PI, Public Citizen, Ranking Digital Rights, Fight for the Future, Parent Coalition for Student Privacy, US PIRG) and by experts like Bruce Schneier. Thread: https://twitter.com/...
Calls to ban surveillance based advertising grow. Support for contextual advertising and ads where users self report what ads they wish to see, at browser level. https://twitter.com/...