Paris (AFP)
Aggressive for many Internet users in a hurry, the banners "cookies" omnipresent on European sites must be more explicit for CNIL, constable of personal data. Publishers and advertisers dispute this hardening of the rules, the application of which is nevertheless considered late by associations.
In early July, Cnil published its new "Guidelines", an interpretation of the evolution of European rules, which define how to collect the consent of visitors to mobile sites or applications to be the recipients of targeted advertising.
Generally, the targeting of a user through the deposit on his browser of a number of tracers including + cookies + advertising, digital cookies to define his interests.
Among the novelties, the consent to deposit tracers can no longer be deduced from the mere pursuit of navigation and all the technical operators who track and analyze the data consultation will be able to prove the consent of the user.
- "Advertising without cookies, it does not exist" -
For nine organizations, including the Online Service Publishers Group (Geste), the Union of Internet Regulators (SRI), the Union of Media Consulting and Purchasing Companies (Udecam) and the Union des marques, La Cnil "exceeds the normal limits of interpretation" of the European Directives.
Étienne Drouard, the group's lawyer who lodged an appeal before the Conseil d'État on 18 September, warns against the temptation, for example, to "draw up an exhaustive list of companies" involved in tracking and advertising targeting. , the only way for these companies to prove the collection of consents: "This is not provided for by the European texts", including the General Regulation on data protection, he told AFP.
Moreover, such rules "do not protect the user either because it is buried under the information and deprived companies that are not in this list of any economic role," said the lawyer.
He also denounces the ban made by the Cnil + + cookies walls +: a practice that is to block access to content for who does not agree to be followed. For publishers and advertisers, viewing an advertisement is the counterpart of access to free content.
But "advertising without + cookies +, it does not exist", justifies Etienne Drouard. Advertisers are investing heavily in targeting or ad automation technologies to better advertise and fight Gafa dominance in the marketplace.
To be reassured about the reality of their audience, advertisers also require, via a multiplicity of intermediaries, the deposit of tracers to prove that each viewing is done by a human.
- No stay -
The CNIL has given itself until the beginning of 2020 to publish a "recommendation" that will say how to apply its "guidelines" then leave an additional six months for companies to adapt. It is only after this date (mid-2020) that the president of this body will authorize to seize the restricted college of the Cnil for offenses of this type, that is to say to open procedures of sanction.
But for the association defending netizens La Quadrature du Net and the association for the development of free messaging Caliopen, the new rules of the CNIL should apply without waiting for the transition period desired by the regulator.
"The protection of our fundamental freedoms can not know any new reprieve," said the two associations during the announcement of a second appeal to the Council of State - separate from that of publishers and advertisers - whose examination had place monday.
A decision of the Council of State is expected in the first half of October.
While the old legislation requiring at least "equivocal" consent is not currently applied by all publishers, the arrival without delay of sanctions would be brutal for all actors, from SMEs to large groups , explains to AFP a specialist who prefers not to be quoted.
The delay left to the operators "takes into account the legal requirement of foreseeability, in case of change of the applicable rules, resulting in particular from the European Convention of the humans right", had indeed justified the Cnil in a communiqué.
© 2019 AFP