Please find the full paper here.

The paper is the Audience Measurement Coalition’s response to the Commission’s consultation on the Data Union Strategy, with particular focus on the discrepancies linked to the implementation of the ePrivacy Directive and its interplay with the GDPR that are problematic for transparent and accurate independent measurement of online media consumption.

The rapidly evolving digital media landscape necessitates robust and consistent legal frameworks to ensure transparency, consumer protection, and fair market competition. Independent audience measurement, a crucial function for markets, consumers, and public authorities, is currently hampered by a fragmented and unclear regulatory environment stemming from diverging interpretations and applications of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the ePrivacy Directive across EU Member States.

In this paper, the Audience Measurement Coalition (AMC) is underlining the urgent need for coordinated interpretation and clarification of these two legislative instruments to ensure legal certainty, facilitate essential digital transparency for the public interest, and safeguard the integrity of the media market.

The absence of a legal framework for a purpose with recognised associated general and public interest objectives has led to unfair competition and enforcement gaps of digital regulation. There is a clear and urgent need for legislative coordination. The need for transparency over the consumption of media and advertising content has exponentially increased with recent EU digital policy.

It is important to note that independent audience measurement is a staple of the media sector, a self regulatory success story. It has ensured accurate statistical audience measurement reports that adhere to the highest market research standards, particularly as media consumption increasingly shifts to digital platforms. To this end, independent audience measurement – which hinges on behavioural monitoring and observing online audiences – allows stakeholders and public authorities to determine evolving media consumption patterns. Independent audience measurement has multifarious benefits. On a bilateral level, audience measurement data assures advertisers that any transaction with the publisher is transparent, fair and devoid of fraud. The verification from an independent party will attest that what was paid for was actually provided by the publisher. Similarly, the publisher has a vested interest in understanding the type of audiences they draw – to better identify broader audience consumption trends. Thus, such audience data (also called “media currency”) sustains a symbiotic relationship between advertisers and publishers and helps identify media consumption trends amongst varying audiences. The independence and neutrality of a third party elected by the market ensures that players of all sizes can compete fairly. For that reason, independent audience measurement is the objective ally of smaller players such as European SMEs (whether advertisers or publishers), as it ensures that market dominance and undue advantages are not a determining factor in the distribution of financial resources on the media market.

Furthermore, the need for transparency over media and advertising content has exponentially increased with EU digital policy which seeks to address economic and social issues brought about by digital transformation. Independent audience measurement is essential in the monitoring and enforcement of the following EU regulations.