In 2021, the Norwegian Consumer Council published a report urging regulators to ban surveillance-based advertising. In response, a coalition of privacy-focused technology companies sent a joint letter to EU and US regulators, calling for legislative action.

The letter represents a growing movement among businesses that have demonstrated profitability without relying on invasive data collection. These companies prove that digital privacy and sustainable business models are not mutually exclusive.

The Open Letter to Regulators

Surveillance-based advertising permeates the modern internet, creating serious problems for both consumers and businesses.

On June 23, a broad coalition of consumer rights organizations, civil rights groups, NGOs, academics, researchers, and privacy advocates called on regulators to put an end to invasive, privacy-hostile advertising practices.

In the EU, the coalition urged regulators to consider banning surveillance-based advertising as part of the Digital Services Act. In the US, they pushed legislators to enact comprehensive privacy legislation.

A group of businesses joined the effort, demonstrating through daily practice that profitable companies can operate without exploiting individual privacy.

Beyond the obvious privacy concerns, surveillance-based advertising also harms the competitive landscape. In this model, a handful of dominant actors gain unfair advantages by collecting data across websites and services. Platform monopolies can abuse their positions by favoring their own products.

These practices undermine competition and redirect revenue away from content creators. Anti-competitive behavior entrenches dominant players while complex advertising supply chains and ineffective targeting technologies erode returns for both advertisers and publishers.

Consumers struggle to differentiate between responsible and irresponsible companies in the digital space, meaning that legitimate businesses -- including many small and medium enterprises -- suffer directly from the actions of unscrupulous actors.

This harms consumers and businesses alike, and can erode the foundations of democracy.

While advertising remains an important revenue source for content creators and publishers, this fact does not justify the massive commercial surveillance infrastructure built in pursuit of "showing the right ad to the right person."

Alternative advertising technologies exist that do not rely on spying on consumers. These models can be deployed without significantly reducing revenue. In fact, many businesses thrive specifically because they reject privacy-invasive practices.

Signatories of the Letter

The letter was co-signed by 14 technology companies:

Vivaldi Technologies
Fastmail
Proton Technologies
Tutanota
DuckDuckGo
Disconnect
Mojeek
Ecosia
Startpage
Nextcloud
Kobler
Strossle International
Mailfence
Various privacy-focused analytics companies

Why This Matters

Privacy-focused businesses demonstrate that sustainable growth does not require selling user data to advertising networks or data brokers. The business model is straightforward: charge a fair price for software and never compromise on user privacy.

As regulators worldwide continue to scrutinize surveillance capitalism, the momentum behind banning these practices continues to build. Website owners who choose privacy-respecting analytics tools position themselves on the right side of this regulatory shift while also protecting their visitors from the reach of data-hungry advertising networks.