EU Proposes Greater Privacy Protection

The EU has proposed broadening privacy protections in electronic communications, including tracking by advertisers, in a bid to promote a digital single market worth tens of billions of euros, RTE reported. The European Commission announced a raft of proposals including a move to have new providers like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Skype covered by the legislation that it wants enacted by May next year. Under the existing EU rules, privacy protection is only applied to text messages and voice calls provided by traditional telecoms operators. “Our proposals will deliver the trust in the Digital Single Market that people expect,” said Andrus Ansip, the commission’s vice-president for the Digital Single Market. The proposals also aim to sharply reduce “cookie” consent requests for internet users, an idea that has drawn sharp rebuke from the advertising and media industry. This new rule would compel websites and browsers to switch from the existing default of allowing users to opt out of cookies that benefit online advertising to asking them to sign on to do so.