How AdTech works

The web has become a place where visiting a webpage triggers many effects elsewhere on the globe, and where advertising technology has morphed into a market driven surveillance ecosystem of a size that was unimaginable even a few decades ago. While especially older people may still think of the 'friendly' world wide web of the nineties, the reality is that underneath the surface of many web pages lies a dark technology layer that sprawls data. "How AdTech works" is a project by the European umbrella of digital rights organisations, EDRi. The goal of EDRi is to address the threat these developments hold for our online lives and the shared public spaces. EDRi wants to de-mystify and challenge the complex and secretive world of online advertising and profiling - and bring attention to these issues at a policy level.

With upcoming platform regulation like the pending EU Digital Services Act (DSA), there is an urgent need to share insights among human rights defenders, academics and the public at large. We need a concerted effort to take on this challenging subject - in order to better understand and subsequently challenge invasive and exploitative monopolistic practices that lead to aggravations of polarisation, spread of disinformation, and other abuses of fundamental rights.

EDRi will engage with legislative efforts across Europe as an opportunity to better protect people’s rights online against data-hungry, abusive business models.

EDRi will support this work via creation of a publication on AdTech and online advertising booklet, which will be distributed among policy makers, human rights defenders and the broader public.