Switzerland proposes banning profiling-based ads to minors

There's been a lot of recent swiss efforts to curtail advertising. Off the top of my head:

- Zurich's parliament voted 58–57 last year to place limits on outdoor advertising (have 2027 to come up with implementation)

- Bern fully instituted the ban but reversed course over revenue concerns

- Vernier & Lancy have banned billboards

They certainly seem to have the appetite to reduce the size of the industrial advertising complex... but there's clearly some successful industry pushback (like in the case of Bern). Curious to see how this profiling shakes out. Hard to make a revenue loss argument so I'm guessing it'll pass.

I really don't get why all these improvements are only geared towards minors. What is the reasoning here to not extend this to every citizen?

United nations human rights

"Article 12

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."

Ad tech Data fusion violates that right

Common topic amongst friends on online advertising: feels like it would be reasonable for platforms like Meta, TikTok, etc to explain why they've served you the ad you're seeing. Imagine an "explain why I'm seeing this" button.

The adtech of today feels very opaque to me; I often have no clue why I see what I do. If platforms had to disclose why you're seeing what you are, you could plug the holes in your privacy. (Fully aware this will never happen, but it's the type of regulation I wish we were proactive about.)

Here in Sweden it's illegal to make ads directed at children. Consequently the TV channels that do so transmit from abroad.

This would of course have been easy to ban anyway-- it's not like we can't have rules on foreign internet firms, for example, but historically the politicians were unwilling to make a useful law.

I think the Swiss could take one step further and add a general ban on ads targeting young children in addition to this; and then we Swedes should imitate the package.

This kind of ballot issue is a great filter. It's so obviously correct, the reason of any normal person will be "why was it legal at all?", so anyone arguing against the ban is quite probably paid to do so and should be ignored.

Banning all personalized advertisements and predatory recommender systems seems like a good move for the whole population.

how will the age of the browsing person be evaluated without checking for IDs? or do kids still get profiled, but if they get profiled and determined to be a kid you can't serve them ads? we could also teach kids at school how to install adblockers.

i'm all for it if we expand it to banning ads in all virtual and physical spaces of Switzerland :D (or at least inside of public transport, i hate how distracting and useless these freaking ad-panels in buses, trains, trams etc. are).

EDIT: okay per a different article[0], social media platforms and search providers have to analyze if their service enhances risks for minors, and do something against it if so. and "big platforms" shouldn't be allowed to serve personalized ads to kids. so they'll just serve unpersonalized ads to kids then? bwoah...

[0]https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/kommunikationsplattformen-bu...

For anyone who’s concerned about the whole “oh we need to check the age of the user”

Here’s a simple solution: the ad industry is welcome to not profile its users.

Don’t get distracted though:

> Furthermore, the reporting procedure is to be extended to include all content suspected of being unlawful.

Operating keyword here: “suspected”

What happened to due process?

Switzerland really is fascinating. They do things like this while also having the most regressive and least restrictive rules around advertising tobacco (to minors and in general) and consuming it (basically anywhere you can see the sky or the outdoors. That includes parking garages, underground parts of train stations, bus stops, under kindergarten windows, and in virtually every accessible building entrance.)

Why not just ban all ads?

Why only for minors? It's not good for adults either.

If implemented as the title implies, data about minors would still be collected (though they'd get generic ads until 18), and now age verification becomes a hard requirement for anything that uses advertising.

Banning targeted advertising completely is a much better move and reduces the incentive to track people online.

I wonder if it would be simpler for the digital advertisement to ban companies to block adblockers solutions. Yes we might kill a certain business area, which lead to let companies find other income sources. Removing targeted advertisement on minor should be no brainer but just harder to implement (everyone is curious and say they are 18).

Great start, now do it for all ages.

I feel now there's growing support behind the idea that advertising that (a) bypasses a person's volition and (b) consumes a significant amount of their daily attention quota, should be illegal. I think the boundary is crossed somewhere along this progression:

1) A sign atop a storefront

2) A merchant yelling at a public marketplace

3) A prominent display by the roadside

4) A flyer delivered to your home

5) An advertisement alongside a news article

6) An advertisement that interrupts a radio and television broadcast

7) An advertisement alongside a digital written content (analogous to (5) but somewhat more intense)

8) An advertisement that pops up while you read content (analogous to (6) but more intense)

9) An obvious product placement within written/audio/visual content you consume

10) A non-obvious placement of an an idea, thought or bias toward a product within the content you consume

11) Content that evokes intense emotions that are presented to you alongside an advertisement

12) Content that activates involuntary addictive pathways in your brain, presented to you alongside an advertisement

It is not enough banning ads; it is necessary to outlaw the profiling to take place in the first place. In fact, today's profiling remains a viable business regardless of any ads placed downstream, because bulk data gets routinely purchased for surveillance purposes.

Ban ads without users' consent altogether.

What benefit does this have for minors that wouldn't also apply to adults?

Such a common sense law. It's crazy to me that we have so many youth protections in place but only in the last year or two governments have started to pay attention to this

The platform should first determine whether the current user is a minor; if a minor is using an account registered to an adult, how can this be detected?

Should do it across the board. The world would be a better place if harvesting personal data for ad targeting was illegal.

as a swiss and as someone working in adtech that does not track users i think its good first step.

the ideal solution in my point would be that platforms that have a login or know or calculate (!) the ASL of the user would be disallowed from showing ads to users below age X.

All ads to minors should be banned.

An ad is a business proposal and minors cannot do business without the consent of their parents.

The problem is: how do, ou identify minors without requiring everyone to ID themselves.

and how do you know who's a minor?

Could we drop the 'to minors' part of that? Either way, great move.

> to minors

why limit only to them? why not to ban it altogether?

so does one need to profile if someone is a minor in order to show them an ad from a random pool of minor and non-minor ads?

So they can get gambling and wiener pill ads too?

So now instead of children pretending to be adults in Australia, to keep using social media, adults in Switzerland will want to be identified as children to avoid profile based advertising.

Cool.

Good first step; then do it for all advertising.

They should ban those generally, not just for minors.

I agree with that. If profiling-based ads were allowed, minors would no longer receive ads for booze and porn. They'd have to ask their older brother about the real internet, which is embarrassing.

I hope there’s a future where people learn about this and say “WTF they were profiling children?!”

The whole world should

Just keep them off the internet. What's the point?

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