• Reuters, Monday, November 26, 2007 11:15 AM

Targeted advertising is once again under the microscope after the European Union's regulators vowed to review recent developments in the industry. "This is a very hot topic that can be expected to be part of our work program next year," Gabriele Loewnau, a senior legal adviser for the German Federal Commissioner for Data Protection, told Reuters. Recommendations from the so-called Article 29 Working Party, the EU's advisory arm on data protection, have spurred the European Commission to formally review issues like Google's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick, an antitrust investigation that is still ongoing.

It seems that every couple of years a new Web privacy issue surfaces. This year it's all about the targeting tactics deployed by Internet ad networks, which have been collecting user data to serve targeted advertising for more than a decade. Now that important players like DoubleClick and Atlas DMT have been acquired by the likes of Google and MSN, regulators are concerned that the combined companies would collect too much information from users, compromising their privacy.

For the most part, the privacy backlash comes at the urging of consumer watchdog groups claiming that Web users don't understand ad network targeting practices. However, in some cases, savvier Web users have taken action. The social network Facebook has drawn the ire of its users with a new product recommendation system that they claim infringes on their privacy. More than 13,000 Facebook users have signed a petition protesting the tactic, which the company calls Beacon.

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