Abstract:
Mobile customers are being tracked and profiled by behavioural advertisers to be able to send them
personalized advertising. This process involves data mining consumer databases containing personally-identifying
or anonymous data and it raises a host of important privacy concerns. This article, the first in a two part series on
consumer information privacy issues on Profiling the Mobile Customer, addresses the questions: “What is profiling
in the context of behavioural advertising?” and “How will consumer profiling impact the privacy of mobile
customers?” The article examines the EU and U.S. regulatory frameworks for protecting privacy and personal data
in regards to profiling by behavioural advertisers that targets mobile customers. It identifies potential harms to
privacy and personal data related to profiling for behavioural advertising. It evaluates the extent to which the
existing regulatory frameworks in the EU and the U.S. provide an adequate level of privacy protection and identifies
key privacy gaps that the behavioural advertising industry and regulators will need to address to adequately protect
mobile consumers from profiling by marketers. The upcoming second article in this series will discuss whether
industry self-regulation or privacy-enhancing technologies will be adequate to address these privacy gaps and makes
suggestions for principles to guide this process.
