Following unlawful online ad tracking practices in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, both data broker companies Oracle and Salesforce will be hit with class-action lawsuits, reports Tech Crunch. The claims are expected to garner no less than 10 billion euros.
Both brokerage firms are accused of violating the General Data Protection Regulation (GPDR) in terms of mining, processing, and sharing personal information to produce targeted advertisements and content.
According to Forbes, both class-action cases are being upheld by the Dutch foundation, The Privacy Collective. The Privacy Collective is a non-profit organization in Europe that is geared towards obtaining compensation for the wrongful use of personal information.
In its filing with the District Court of Amsterdam last Friday, August 14, 2020, the collective alleges that both Oracle and Salesforce breached the General Data Protection Regulation through the use of third-party tracking cookies for online target tracking.
After the court filing in Amsterdam, a similar case is set to be filed with the High Court of London later in August.
The Privacy Collective maintains that Oracle and Salesforce exploited consumers’ privacy and personal information via third-party cookies called ‘Bluekai’ and ‘Krux.’ Both Bluekai and Krux are hosted on a number of popular platforms, including Amazon, Booking.com, Dropbox, Reddit, Spotify, and more.
Given these circumstances, the collective highlights the possibility of such actions to be incomparable and incompatible with the current existing European law surrounding the use and processing of personal data states Tech Crunch.
Forbes reveals both third-party cookies are utilized towards tracking, monitoring, collecting, and storing personal information of consumers on the Internet. Information obtained via these cookies will reportedly be shared and sold via real-time bidding.
In a statement, class representative and claimant for England and Wales Dr. Rebecca Rumbul said, “Everyone who has ever used the internet is at risk from this technology. It may be largely hidden but it is far from harmless.”
“If data collected from internet use is not adequately controlled, it can be used to facilitate highly targeted marketing that may expose vulnerable minors to unsuitable content, fuel unhealthy habits such as online gambling or prey on other addictions,” said Rumbul via Forbes.
Tech Crunch states that the class-action lawsuits filed against the data broker giants are more concerned with getting consent and data access rights.
In an interview with the site, Dr. Rumbul said that “There is, I think, no way that any normal person can really give informed consent to the way in which their data is going to be processed by the cookies that have been placed by Oracle and Salesforce.”
