A group of privacy-first tech companies have published an open letter today asking EU and US regulators to take action and ban surveillance-based advertising.
Surveillance-based advertising refers to a common practice in the advertising industry where companies amass large quantities of personal identifiers, which they then use to track users across the web, including across platforms and devices, in order to deliver highly customized ads.
The practice has been in use for almost two decades and has been widely criticized, and has led to the rise of ad blockers as a response from users looking to preserve their privacy.
Sources:
- https://therecord.media/protonmail-duckduckgo-others-ask-eu-us-regulators-to-ban-surveillance-based-advertising/
- https://vivaldi.com/blog/letter-ban-surveillance-based-advertising/
Japan has announced today that it will be necessary to have multiple apps installed for people entering Japan, even for those with Japanese residence. These apps will be used to track people’s locations. The apps required are the following; OSSMA for location tracking, Skype for communicating, apps such as Google Maps in order to record location, and COCOA for COVID tracking.
Source:
- https://www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/seisakunitsuite/bunya/0000121431_00250.html
