The European Parliament is strict on advertising on the Internet

Targeted ads based on your political, religious beliefs, ethnicity or sexuality may soon be banned in Europe. Minors are not even allowed to view personalized ads in any way. It should also become easy for all internet users to refuse to track their online behavior in order to show them ads accordingly.

These provisions have been added to Digital Services Law (DSA) by amendments. The DSA was approved on Thursday, as expected, but appears tougher than the original European Commission version. For a while it seemed like the custom announcement would almost be complete Muharram, but this idea was eventually dropped.

The Digital Services Act (DSA) sets out the rules that major players on the Internet, including Facebook and Google, must abide by in Europe in the coming years. They will have to be more transparent about (among other things) the algorithms that define what we can and can’t see in their services. The DSA also raises standards for social media moderation (including removing illegal posts) and imposes severe penalties of up to 6% of global revenue.

exception

Over 100 mods rolled out this week. An attempt was also made to obtain an exception for news organizations from the strict modes of supervision of social networks. A network like Facebook, for example, will be obligated to act quickly against hate messages from regular users, but it will not only be able to remove messages posted by media bodies. This modification failed.

The text approved Thursday goes further than expected in restricting large internet companies. Google responded by reiterating its support for the DSA’s goal of making the Internet a safer place, stating that it would “analyze the text that was voted on to understand how it affects our different users.”

Meta (the company behind Facebook and Instagram) indicated Thursday evening the response of the CCIA Group (which represents a number of large tech companies). The CCIA expressed its concern about the amendments in a press release, without going into details. “We hope that during the final negotiations, politicians will look closely at the impact of the recent amendments on consumers and businesses,” the statement said.

The final version of the DSA should be drawn up in the coming months between the European Commission, the European Council and the European Parliament. So the text can change again.