Editorial: Discrimination in Online Advertising

AuthorCaroline Cauffman
Published date01 June 2021
Date01 June 2021
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/1023263X211022526
Subject MatterEditorial
Editorial
Editorial: Discrimination
in Online Advertising
Caroline Cauffman*
The amount spent globally on digital advertising has been rising steadily for years and currently
it even exceeds the expenditure on advertising in traditional media.
1
Similarly, the continuous
growth of e-commerce is a global tendency that has recently been fuelled by the pandemic and the
related lockdowns.
2
Ensuring fairness and equal treatment in this online world is therefore of
the utmost importance. The empirical research that has been carried out on this topic shows that
there are reasons for concern.
Indeed, a study carried out in the US showed that Google advertisements for well-paid jobs were
shown more often to men than to women.
3
Facebook was sued several times in the US because of discrimination in employment, housing
and credit advertisements contrary to state and/or federal laws. In particular, the Plaintiffs alleged
that Facebook 1) enabled advertisers to include or exclude users based on their sex or age, or based
on interests, behaviours, or demographics relating to or associated with race, national origin, sex,
age, or family status, 2) it allowed advertisers to use geographic targeting resulting in
discrimination based on race or national origin, and 3) it offered a ‘Lookalike Audience’ tool that
allowed advertisers to create audiences of Facebook users that had common characteristics with
the advertiser’s current customers or other groups, which could result in discrimination of various
groups, including based on gender, race, and age.
4
In March 2019, Facebook reached a settlement on a number of such cases brought between 2016
and 2018. In the settlement, it promised, inter alia, to establish a separate advertising portal for
creating housing, employment, and credit (‘HEC’) advertisements on Facebook, Instagram, and
* Associate Professor of Contract, Consumer and Competition Law, Maastricht University, The Netherlands; Guest
professor University of Hasselt, Belgium.
1. J. Enberg, ‘Global Digital Ad Spending 2019’, eMarketer (2019), https://www.emarketer.com/content/global-digital-
ad-spending-2019.
2. D. Coppola, ‘E-commerce worldwide - Statistics & Facts’, statista (2021), https://www.statista.com/topics/871/online-
shopping/; D. Berthiaume, ‘Study: E-commerce market will continue strong growth in 2021’, CSA (2021), https://
chainstoreage.com/study-e-commerce-market-will-continue-strong-growth-2021.
3. A. Datta, M.C. Tschantz, A. Datta, ‘Automated Experiments on Ad Privacy Settings’, 1 Proceedings on Privacy
Enhancing Technologies (2015).
4. ‘Summary of Settlements Between Civil Rights Avocated and Facebook’, ACLU (2019), https://www.aclu.org/sites/
default/files/field_document/3.18.2019_joint_statement_final_0.pdf.
Maastricht Journal of European and
Comparative Law
2021, Vol. 28(3) 283–286
ªThe Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1023263X211022526
maastrichtjournal.sagepub.com
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