Thirty US data brokers and data management firms, including Adobe Systems, AOL and Salesforce.com, are violating privacy promises they’ve made regarding their handling of the personal information of EU residents, a privacy group said in a complaint to be filed Thursday.
The 30 companies have all voluntarily committed to supporting the EU Safe Harbour framework, a set of standards for protecting the privacy of EU residents, but have failed to live up to those promises, the Center for Digital Democracy said in the complaint.
The failure to honor EU Safe Harbour commitments constitutes a deceptive business practice, the CDD said in its complaint to the US Federal Trade Commission. “The commercial surveillance of EU consumers by US companies, without consumer awareness or meaningful consent, contradicts the fundamental rights of EU citizens and European data protection law,” the complaint said.
The CDD called on US and EU officials to suspend the programme pending an investigation by the FTC, the US agency responsible for enforcing the safe harbour provisions.
The companies named in the complaint also include digital profiling firm Datalogix, marketing software maker Marketo, Oracle-owned data management firm BlueKai, and Neustar, a DNS and call‐routing service that, after a recent acquisition, has also become a targeted advertising provider.
The companies in the complaint “create detailed digital dossiers” of EU residents, the CDD complaint said. The companies combine public records with online tracking technologies, mobile tracking and other sources, and can collect addresses, purchase histories, income and family structure, the CDD said.
In many cases, companies listed in the complaint are collecting more personal information from EU residents than described in their safe harbour statements, according to the CDD.
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