The ePrivacy Regulation is âlike a bad movieâ

As part of their work on the ePrivacy Regulation, FEDMA developed with other European trade associations, a campaign named #LikeABadMovie. The Communication campaign was launched last week, and has been published on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.

The campaign consists of 4 movie trailers showing how the ePrivacy Regulation can be damaging for the digital advertising industry and have repercussion on innovation, free press and consumers. The campaign also include an alternative ending suggesting how the ePrivacy can be improved, and a website.

Here you can find short description of each video (which can be used for posting and sharing) as well as a link to the video for downloading the content.

App-ocalypse (downloadable here: https://vimeo.com/236635324)

The tech startups behind some of the world’s best apps often rely on data-driven ad revenue to offer their apps for free and scale up their companies. Without it, their business model basically falls apart. Less revenue will mean fewer startups and eventually fewer apps for consumers.

Wake up. Pay up (downloadable here: https://vimeo.com/236631509)

Europeans prefer to access content and services for free, but without revenue from data-driven ads free stuff will be in severely short supply. From one day to the next, consumers could be in for a rude awakening that requires them to pay up or be left in the cold.

True or False? (downloadable here: https://vimeo.com/236632053)

Data-driven ad revenue helps make high quality journalism possible. With that revenue diminished, funding for a wide choice of media content will be squeezed. Many independent publishers will start to downsize, and some may even disappear making it more difficult to hold power to account. For the consumer this means far fewer independent sources of information and less diversity of opinion.

Mr Happy (downloadable here: https://vimeo.com/236899460)

The European Commission sought to make it easier for European consumers to manage their data privacy online. However the proposed reforms to the ePrivacy Regulation would require consumers to set their privacy settings for every website, in every browser and on every device they use. Bombarded with questions, consumers will find themselves exhausted, confused and unsure what “granting consent” actually even means.

Alternative Ending (downloadable here: https://vimeo.com/236629936)

In revising the ePrivacy Regulation, the European Commission set out to reinforce trust and security in the Digital Single Market. If left unchanged, the proposed reforms would be terrible for European consumers. Policymakers still have time to alleviate the damage by including other grounds for data-processing (e.g. legitimate interest), by encouraging better informed consumers, and by aligning the text with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The ePrivacy Regulation is #LikeABadMovie. But we can still change the ending.

The DMA is championing the campaign and the website is available here.