The Professional Publishers Association (PPA) has announced it has submitted evidence to the ICO’s consultation on online advertising regulation, warning that the current approach risks leaving publishers without a commercially viable model.
The PPA says the barriers under the ICO’s current approach are:
- By limiting exemptions to contextual-only advertising, the ICO would prevent publishers from accessing the revenues that come from personalised advertising. Agencies consistently pay multiples more for personalised inventory — and often won’t bid at all for contextual-only ads.
- This imbalance means publishers cannot generate sufficient revenue to fund quality, fact-checked journalism.
- Consumers also lose out: while contextual ads can be useful, they don’t provide the same level of relevance as personalised ads. Publishers report that when users complain about ads, it’s usually that personalised ads aren’t relevant enough — not that they are too targeted.
The solutions proposed by the PPA:
- Extend consent requirement exemptions to cover responsible personalised advertising — where data is pseudonymised, retained only as long as necessary, and shared only with processors (not controllers).
- Align regulation with market realities to ensure publishers can sustain investment in trusted journalism.
- Balance privacy protection with economic growth, creating a framework that both safeguards users and supports the UK’s creative industries.
The full response can be read here.
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