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The EU Digital Services Act: what does it mean for online advertising and adtech?
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What does the Digital Services Act (DSA) mean for online advertising? We describe and analyse the DSA rules that are most relevant for online advertising and adtech (advertising technology). We also highlight to what extent the DSA’s advertising rules add something to the rules in the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the ePrivacy Directive. The DSA introduces several specific requirements for online advertising. First, the DSA imposes transparency requirements in relation to advertisements. Second, very large online platforms (VLOPs) should develop a publicly available repository with information about the ads they presented. Third, the DSA bans profiling-based advertising (behavioural advertising) if it uses sensitive data or if it targets children. Besides these specific provisions, the general rules of the DSA on illegal content also apply to advertising. Advertisements are a form of information, and thus subject to the general DSA rules. Moreover, we conclude that the DSA applies to some types of ad tech companies. For example, ad networks, companies that connect advertisers to publishers of apps and websites, should be considered platforms. Some ad networks may even qualify as VLOPs. Hence, ad networks must comply with the more general obligations in the DSA. The application of these general rules to advertisements and ad networks can have far-reaching effects that have been underexplored and deserve further research. We also show that certain aspects of the DSA are still unclear. For instance, we encourage the European Commission or regulators to clarify the concepts of ‘online platform’ and ‘recipients’ in the context of ad networks and other adtech companies.
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Executional greenwashing is a new form of greenwashing that does not use any type of claim but suggests nature-evoking elements such as images using colors or sounds, backgrounds representing natural landscapes, pictures of endangered animal species, or renewable sources of energy.
“Executional greenwashing is described as a new form of greenwashing and this strategy of greenwashing does not use any type of claim that was described before, but it suggests natureevoking elements such as images using colors (e.g., green, blue) or sounds (e.g., sea, birds). 16 Backgrounds representing natural landscapes (e.g., mountains, forests, oceans) or pictures of endangered animal species”
From FROM MARKETING CLAIMS TO UNFAIR COMMERCIAL PRACTICES: REGULATING GREENWASHING IN EU LAW (2026) · cites this paper as [16]
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- DSA, art 25. See on that provision: Cristiana Santos, Nataliia Bielova, Sanju Ahuja, Christine Utz, Colin Gray, and Gilles Mertens, 'Which Online Platforms and Dark Patterns Should Be Regulated under Article 25 of the DSA?, pre-print, 24 July 2024, <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4899559> accessed 20 December 2024.
- Aleksandre Zardiashvili (Lex Zard), Power and dignity: the ends of online behavioral advertising in the European Union (PhD thesis University of Leiden 2024) <https://hdl.handle. net/1887/3753619> accessed 20 December 2024. 141 <https://support.google.com/ads/answer/10923348>, accessed 23 December 2024. 142 <https://privacy.eu.criteo.com/adchoices?cppv=3&cpp=Rv6WIab8v…UKhF3WzJTLbRszslQxcW-Pm5TrWKNZhr58_ JLjWXrdtvVv5x4SLcfO7MN-U>, accessed 23 December 2024. 143
- Leon, Pedro Giovanni, Justin Cranshaw, Lorrie Faith Cranor, Jim Graves, Manoj Hastak, Blase Ur, and Guzi Xu. 'What do online behavioral advertising privacy disclosures communicate to users?' In Proceedings of the 2012 ACM workshop on Privacy in the electronic society, pp. 19-30. 2012. 144 See the 'Tracking-Free Ads Coalition', https://trackingfreeads.eu/coalition-members/ accessed 20 December 2024. See also 'How corporate lobbying undermined the EU's push to ban surveillance ads' (Corporate Europe Observatory 18 January 2022 <https://corporateeurope.org/en/2022/01/how-corporate-lobbying-undermined-eus-push-ban-surveillance-ads> accessed 20 December 2024;
- Clothilde Goujard, 'European Parliament pushes to ban targeted ads based on health, religion or sexual ori- entation' (Politico 20 January 2022) <https://www.politico.eu/article/european-parliament-bans-use-of-sensitive-personal-da- ta-for-targeted-ads/> accessed 20 December 2024. 145 Calling 'special categories' of data 'sensitive data' is not fully correct. All types of personal data can be more or less sensitive, depending on the context. For instance, one's home address is not sensitive for some people. But victims of a stalker might want to keep their house address secret; for such victims their home address is sensitive. 154 CJEU, case Case C-184/20, ECLI:EU:C:2022:601, OT v. Vyriausioji tarnybinės etikos komisija, 1 August 2022. The CJEU said that the use 'of the verb "reveal" is consistent with the taking into account of processing not only of inherently sensitive data, but also of data revealing information of that nature indirectly (…)', par. 123. See also: Hoppe, T. ' Anticorruption, Privacy, and (Gay) Family-The CJEU Rules on Financial Disclosure of Public Officials (C-184/20);. ICL Journal, 17(4), 2023, 433-446. 155 CJEU, Case C-252/21, ECLI:EU:C:2023:537, 4 July 2023, Meta/Bundeskartellamt, para 73. In a different case, a Dutch court arrived at a similar conclusion: Rechtbank Amsterdam, Data Privacy Stichting v. Meta, 15 March 2024, ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2023:1407 https://deeplink.rechtspraak.nl/uitspraak?id=ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2023:1407 accessed 20 December 2024. 156 CJEU 2024, Case C-21/23, ECLI:EU:C:2024:846, Lindenapotheke, 4 October 2024, para 81. 157 CJEU 2024, Case C-21/23, ECLI:EU:C:2024:846, Lindenapotheke, 4 October 2024. 158 CJEU, Case C-252/21, ECLI:EU:C:2023:537, 4 July 2023, Meta/Bundeskartellamt. 159 Article 26(3) DSA. 160 DSA, art 2(4)(g). 161 ePrivacy Directive, art 5(3). 162 GDPR, art 4(1) and recital 30. See Frederik J. Zuiderveen Borgesius, 'Singling out people without knowing their names - behavioural targeting, pseudonymous data, and the new Data Protection Regulation' (2016) 32 Computer Law & Security Review 256. 163 GDPR, art 4(2). 164 GDPR, art 9(1). 165 GDPR, art 9(2)(a). 166 GDPR, art e 6(1). For ease of reading we speak of 'companies' . The GDPR actually refers to 'controllers'; see GDPR, art 4(7). 167 GDPR, art 6(1). 168 European Data Protection Board, 'Binding Decision 4/2022 on the dispute submitted by the Irish SA on Meta Platforms Ireland Limited and its Instagram service (Art. 65 GDPR)' (5 December (2022) <https://edpb.europa.eu/our-work-tools/ our-documents/binding-decision-board-art-65/binding-decision-42022-dispute-submitted_en≥ accessed 20 December 2024, in particular par. 421. 169 See e.g. Jiahong Chen, Regulating Online Behavioural Advertising Through Data Protection Law. (Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham 2021), chapter 5; Zardiashvili (n 139) 214;
- the GDPR], (…) specifically the need to obtain consent of the data subject prior to the processing of personal data for targeted advertising. ' 171 ePrivacy Directive, art 5(3). 172 Valid consent requires an 'unambiguous indication of the data subject's wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her' (art 4(11) GDPR). Moreover, valid consent requires that consent is 'informed' and 'freely given', in other words: voluntary (art 4(11) GDPR). 173 Lex Zard, Power and dignity: the ends of online behavioral advertising in the European Union, PhD thesis University of Leiden, May 2024, https://hdl.handle.net/1887/3753619 accessed 26 May 2024, p. 170. 174 European Commission, 'Statement by Commissioner Breton on steps announced by LinkedIn to comply with DSA pro- visions on targeted advertisement' (press release 7 June 2024) <https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/statement-com- missioner-breton-steps-announced-linkedin-comply-dsa-provisions-targeted-advertisement> accessed 29 October 2024. See also Patrick Corrigan (LinkedIn VP, Legal -Digital Safety), 'Welcoming the Digital Services Act' (update 7 June 2024), <https://www.
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FROM MARKETING CLAIMS TO UNFAIR COMMERCIAL PRACTICES: REGULATING GREENWASHING IN EU LAW
Rudohradská, S. (2026) · EU and Comparative Law Issues and Challenges Series · doi:10.25234/eclic/44765
Metadata
- Authors
- Wolters, P., & Zuiderveen Borgesius, F.
- Affiliations
- Radboud University Nijmegen (NL)
- iHub, Radboud University , Erasmusplein 1, 6525 HT Nijmegen ,
- Venue
- International Journal of Law and Information Technology
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2025
- Volume
- 33
- ISSN
- 0967-0769 (ISSN-L)
- 1464-3693
- OpenAlex
- W4410420144
- Cited by
- 7
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 1
- FWCI
- 43.75
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- International Journal of Law and Information Technology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Law › Digitalization, Law, and Regulation
- Social Sciences › Law › Diverse Legal and Medical Studies
- Social Sciences › Business, Management and Accounting › Industrial relations › Legal and Labor Studies
- Keywords
- Digital Services Act, online advertising, advertising technology, ad networks, very large online platforms, behavioural advertising, children's online privacy, transparency requirements, illegal content, General Data Protection Regulation, ePrivacy Directive, digital platforms
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