At least 30 US companies – including Adobe, Alterian, AOL, ExactTarget and Salesforce.com – have been accused of using EU consumers’ personal data without consent to drive marketing campaigns.
According to a complaint filed with the US Federal Trade Commission, the firms’ use of personal information violates the “safe harbour” agreement, which is itself under review within the European Commission.
The privacy group behind the complaint, the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), is calling for an investigation into allegations that the companies are involved in “data profiling and online targeting, including data brokers that have compiled vast amounts of sensitive information on individual consumers”.
The group wants the FTC to investigate data management platforms that allow the companies’ corporate clients to analyse their own consumer information and “combine it with outside data sources, to produce detailed marketing insights”, in addition to “mobile marketers that track devices and tie them to user profiles in order to identify the most profitable consumers for personalised advertising”.
CDD executive director Jeff Chester said: “The US is failing to keep its privacy promise to Europe. Instead of ensuring that the US lives up to its commitment to protect EU consumers, our investigation found that there is little oversight and enforcement by the FTC.”
He added: “The big data-driven companies in our complaint use safe harbour as a shield to further their information-gathering practices without serious scrutiny. Companies are relying on exceedingly brief, vague, or obtuse descriptions of their data collection practices, even though safe harbour requires meaningful transparency and candour. Our investigation found that many of the companies are involved with a web of powerful multiple data broker partners who, unknown to the EU public, pool their data on individuals so they can be profiled and targeted online.”
Earlier this year, MEPs demanded the suspension of the safe harbour agreement, following the Prism-gate scandal.
The pact has been under review since the Edward Snowden revelations first emerged last summer but the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties, Justice & Home Affairs (Libe) committee added its weight to a report that called for the “immediate suspension” of the framework.
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