I samband med att människor idag är uppkopplade på internet i en större utsträckning har det bidragit till att allt fler människor har anslutit sig till sociala medier, varav Facebook är det största sociala nätverket. Detta har i sin tur resulterat i att företag ökar sina investeringar i Facebook och behövt ändra sin marknadsföringsverksamhet genom att de intressebaserar annonser utifrån konsumenters online-aktiviteter. Detta aktuella fenomen kallas för Online Behavioural Adveritising (OBA) där tidigare forskning har diskuterat problematiken som föreligger. Det råder en brist på kunskap om OBA bland konsumenter och konsumenter upplever även oro kring deras personliga integritet. Det är därmed av intresse att undersöka om en sådan kunskapsbrist är en potentiell risk till konsumenters upplevda oro. Denna studie ämnar att bidra med ökad förståelse för relevansen av kunskap kring Online Behavioural Advertising och hur det i sin tur påverkar konsumenters upplevda oro. Grundtanken är att ur ett konsumentperspektiv belysa kunskapens roll i den upplevda oron OBA skapar kring personlig integritet på Facebook. Utifrån den problematik som har beskrivits har två frågeställning formulerats: Vilken samt hur mycket kunskap har konsumenter på Facebook kring hur Online Behavioural Advertising fungerar? Hur påverkas konsumenters upplevda oro kring Online Behavioural Advertising av deras kunskap? Dessa frågeställningar har besvarats genom en kvalitativ forskningsmetodik där empirin har samlats in utifrån 16 stycken individuella intervjuer. Empirin analyserades därmed med en jämförelse av tidigare forskning och teorier. Resultatet tyder på att konsumenters upplevda oro kan bero på deras kunskap kring OBA. De respondenter som besatt en högre grad av kunskap om OBA kände ingen oro och respondenter som besatt lite kunskap om OBA kände generellt mer oro. / Due to the fact that the majority of people today are connected to the Internet, it has contributed to more and more people joining social media, where Facebook is the largest social network. This has resulted in companies increasing their investments in Facebook and changing their marketing activities by individually targeting their advertisements based on consumers online behaviour. This phenomenon is called Online Behavioral Advertising (OBA), where researchers have discussed existing problems concerning the area. There is a lack of knowledge about OBA among consumers and they also feel concerned about their privacy. Therefore, it is of interest to investigate if such a lack of knowledge is a potential risk to consumers' perceived concern. This study aims to provide with a better understanding of the relevance of knowledge about Online Behavioral Advertising and its effects on perceived concerns regarding OBA. Primarily, the idea is to highlight the role of knowledge in the perceived concerns that OBA creates regarding personal integrity on Facebook. Based on the purpose, the following research questions have been formulated: What and how much knowledge do consumers have on Facebook about how Online Behavioral Advertising works? How are consumer’s privacy concerns about Online Behavioral Advertising affected by their knowledge? These questions have been answered by a qualitative research methodology where empirical findings have been collected based on 16 individual interviews. The empirical data was analyzed by comparing previous research and theories. The results indicate that consumers' perceived concerns may be due to their knowledge regarding OBA. The respondents who possessed a higher degree of knowledge about OBA were not concerned and respondents who possessed little knowledge about OBA felt more concerned in general.

This thesis addresses the question of how data protection law should respond to the challenges arising from the ever-increasing prevalence of big data. The investigation is conducted with the case study of online behavioural advertising (OBA) and within the EU data protection legal framework, especially the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It is argued that data protection law should respond to the big data challenges by leveraging the regulatory options that are either already in place in the current legal regime or potentially available to policymakers. With the highly complex, powerful and opaque OBA network, in both technical and economic terms, the use of big data may pose fundamental threats to certain individualistic, collective or societal values. Despite a limited number of economic benefits such as free access to online services and the growth of the digital market, the latent risks of OBA call for an effective regulatory regime on big data. While the EU's GDPR represents the latest and most comprehensive legal framework regulating the use of personal data, it has still fallen short on certain important aspects. The regulatory model characterised by individualised consent and the necessity test remains insufficient in fully protecting data subjects as autonomous persons, consumers and citizens in the context of OBA. There is thus a pressing need for policymakers to review their regulatory toolbox in the light of the potential threats. On the one hand, it is necessary to reconsider the possibilities to blacklist or whitelist certain data uses with mechanisms that are either in place in the legal framework or can be introduced additionally. On the other hand, it is also necessary to realise the full range of policy options that can be adopted to assist individuals in making informed decisions in the age of big data.

No description available.

Au cours des dernières années, le domaine de la consommation a grandement évolué. Les agents de marketing ont commencé à utiliser l’Internet pour influencer les consommateurs en employant des tactiques originales et imaginatives qui ont rendus possible l’atteinte d'un niveau de communication interpersonnelle qui avait précédemment été insondable. Leurs interactions avec les consommateurs, en utilisant la technologie moderne, se manifeste sous plusieurs formes différentes qui sont toutes accompagnés de leur propre assortiment de problèmes juridiques. D’abord, il n'est pas rare pour les agents de marketing d’utiliser des outils qui leur permettent de suivre les actions des consommateurs dans le monde virtuel ainsi que dans le monde physique. Les renseignements personnels recueillis d'une telle manière sont souvent utilisés à des fins de publicité comportementale en ligne – une utilisation qui ne respecte pas toujours les limites du droit à la vie privée. Il est également devenu assez commun pour les agents de marketing d’utiliser les médias sociaux afin de converser avec les consommateurs. Ces forums ont aussi servi à la commission d’actes anticoncurrentiels, ainsi qu’à la diffusion de publicités fausses et trompeuses – deux pratiques qui sont interdites tant par la loi sur la concurrence que la loi sur la protection des consommateurs. Enfin, les agents de marketing utilisent diverses tactiques afin de joindre les consommateurs plus efficacement en utilisant diverses tactiques qui les rendent plus visible dans les moteurs de recherche sur Internet, dont certaines sont considérés comme malhonnêtes et pourraient présenter des problèmes dans les domaines du droit de la concurrence et du droit des marques de commerce. Ce mémoire offre une description détaillée des outils utilisés à des fins de marketing sur Internet, ainsi que de la manière dont ils sont utilisés. Il illustre par ailleurs les problèmes juridiques qui peuvent survenir à la suite de leur utilisation et définit le cadre législatif régissant l’utilisation de ces outils par les agents de marketing, pour enfin démontrer que les lois qui entrent en jeu dans de telles circonstances peuvent, en effet, se révéler bénéfiques pour ces derniers d'un point de vue économique. / The evolution of consumerism in recent years has been nothing short of remarkable. The unprecedented use of the Internet by marketers to influence consumers in original and imaginative ways has rendered possible a level of communicative efficiency that had previously been unfathomable. Their interaction with consumers using modern technology manifests itself in several different forms – all of which are accompanied by their own assortment of legal issues. To begin with, it is not unheard of for marketers to use tools meant to track the behaviour of individuals throughout both the virtual and physical worlds. The personal information collected in such a manner is often utilized for Online Behavioural Advertising purposes – a use which does not always respect the boundaries of privacy law. It has also become rather common for marketers to utilize online social media to promote conversations with consumers. It has occurred, however, that these forums have also been utilized to further the anti-competitive ambitions of companies while also serving as an outlet for false advertising – two eventualities that are prohibited by both competition laws and consumer protection laws. Finally, marketers utilize various tactics in order to more successfully reach consumers through online search engines – a practice known as Search Engine Marketing – some of which are considered to be dishonest and could present issues from both competition law and trademark law perspectives. This thesis essentially provides a detailed description of these tools and the manners in which they are utilized and then proceeds to illustrate the legal issues that may arise as a result of their use. In doing so, it outlines the legal boundaries within which marketers must use these tools so as to ultimately demonstrate that the laws that come into play under such circumstances may, in fact, prove to be beneficial to marketers from an economic perspective.

Au cours des dernières années, le domaine de la consommation a grandement évolué. Les agents de marketing ont commencé à utiliser l’Internet pour influencer les consommateurs en employant des tactiques originales et imaginatives qui ont rendus possible l’atteinte d'un niveau de communication interpersonnelle qui avait précédemment été insondable. Leurs interactions avec les consommateurs, en utilisant la technologie moderne, se manifeste sous plusieurs formes différentes qui sont toutes accompagnés de leur propre assortiment de problèmes juridiques. D’abord, il n'est pas rare pour les agents de marketing d’utiliser des outils qui leur permettent de suivre les actions des consommateurs dans le monde virtuel ainsi que dans le monde physique. Les renseignements personnels recueillis d'une telle manière sont souvent utilisés à des fins de publicité comportementale en ligne – une utilisation qui ne respecte pas toujours les limites du droit à la vie privée. Il est également devenu assez commun pour les agents de marketing d’utiliser les médias sociaux afin de converser avec les consommateurs. Ces forums ont aussi servi à la commission d’actes anticoncurrentiels, ainsi qu’à la diffusion de publicités fausses et trompeuses – deux pratiques qui sont interdites tant par la loi sur la concurrence que la loi sur la protection des consommateurs. Enfin, les agents de marketing utilisent diverses tactiques afin de joindre les consommateurs plus efficacement en utilisant diverses tactiques qui les rendent plus visible dans les moteurs de recherche sur Internet, dont certaines sont considérés comme malhonnêtes et pourraient présenter des problèmes dans les domaines du droit de la concurrence et du droit des marques de commerce. Ce mémoire offre une description détaillée des outils utilisés à des fins de marketing sur Internet, ainsi que de la manière dont ils sont utilisés. Il illustre par ailleurs les problèmes juridiques qui peuvent survenir à la suite de leur utilisation et définit le cadre législatif régissant l’utilisation de ces outils par les agents de marketing, pour enfin démontrer que les lois qui entrent en jeu dans de telles circonstances peuvent, en effet, se révéler bénéfiques pour ces derniers d'un point de vue économique. / The evolution of consumerism in recent years has been nothing short of remarkable. The unprecedented use of the Internet by marketers to influence consumers in original and imaginative ways has rendered possible a level of communicative efficiency that had previously been unfathomable. Their interaction with consumers using modern technology manifests itself in several different forms – all of which are accompanied by their own assortment of legal issues. To begin with, it is not unheard of for marketers to use tools meant to track the behaviour of individuals throughout both the virtual and physical worlds. The personal information collected in such a manner is often utilized for Online Behavioural Advertising purposes – a use which does not always respect the boundaries of privacy law. It has also become rather common for marketers to utilize online social media to promote conversations with consumers. It has occurred, however, that these forums have also been utilized to further the anti-competitive ambitions of companies while also serving as an outlet for false advertising – two eventualities that are prohibited by both competition laws and consumer protection laws. Finally, marketers utilize various tactics in order to more successfully reach consumers through online search engines – a practice known as Search Engine Marketing – some of which are considered to be dishonest and could present issues from both competition law and trademark law perspectives. This thesis essentially provides a detailed description of these tools and the manners in which they are utilized and then proceeds to illustrate the legal issues that may arise as a result of their use. In doing so, it outlines the legal boundaries within which marketers must use these tools so as to ultimately demonstrate that the laws that come into play under such circumstances may, in fact, prove to be beneficial to marketers from an economic perspective.