The Privacy Consequences in the Rise of Ad Blockers

[Commentary] “Content Blockers a Boon for Privacy” ran the headline from GigOm in a recent Daily Dashboard, but is it as simple as that? Having dug a little deeper into the announcement that Apple was opening up iOS9 to content blocking apps, I quickly uncovered that apps such as Blockr that were advertised as "privacy protectors" were also offering to block the “annoying cookie warnings” required by European Union laws under the e-Privacy Directive. This capability has been available for a while through ad blocker extensions but it seemed ironic that an app marketed as a privacy management tool would seek to remove the privacy protections required in EU law. As we know in the privacy profession, privacy best practices and laws are built on the pillars of Transparency, Notice and Choice. It now appears that some ad blockers, acting under a banner of privacy, are achieving exactly the opposite by removing consumer visibility into the tracking that’s taking place and consumers’ ability to chose which cookies and trackers they want to accept.

[As Global Communications Director at TRUSTe]