Online Behavioural Advertising: Balancing Privacy And User Experience

Monitoring internet surfing can give a detailed picture of a person's online life.

In the context of a general public sensitivity to surveillance of activity and behaviour, there is much debate on legislation governing behavioural targeted advertising.

What is behavioural targeted advertising?

In principle, it is the kind of online advertising that is displayed differently to the user depending on his interests. So, unlike a newspaper ad, which is seen by all readers irrespective of their specific interests and profile, some ads displayed on a website may be seen only by certain users based on their online profile of interests and concerns.

Usually, the profile is drawn by using data collected from cookies. These data, in principle, do not offer information that allows identification of the user, but are useful to create a general profile of interests.