Wolfie Christl aka CrackedLabs is known for his meticulous investigations of surveillance adtech's inner workings. This latest research report, on the dangers and perils related to behavioral advertising in the online gambling context, is no exception. Methodologically built around the analysis of one individual's data trail and its exploitation, it is a chilling read, revealing just how much out of control, and lacking any kind of ethical foundation, the online tracking industry is:
This investigation lays out the scale and depth of behavioural surveillance and data practices used by online gambling operators. It provides extensive information about the scope of the data flows and the web of third-party companies that receive that data to build detailed and intimate profiles of individuals, often without their knowledge. Such profiles include indicators of personal vulnerability and addictive behaviours, which can then be used to target the most vulnerable.
With the full report counting up 61 pages plus 129 pages of technical details, the executive summary (PDF) is the easiest way in.
On Meta’s ‘regulatory headwinds’ and adtech’s privacy reckoning
A key part of the reason for Europe’s slow enforcement against adtech is undoubtedly the lack of transparency and obfuscating complexity the industry has used to cloak how it operates so people cannot understand what is being done with their data. […] If you can’t see it, how can you object to it? […] But the obfuscating darkness of adtech’s earlier years is long gone — and the disinfecting sunlight is starting to flood in. Last December the European Commission explicitly warned adtech giants over the use of cynical legal tricks to evade GDPR compliance […] So, by hook or by crook, those purifying privacy headwinds gonna blow.