The European Parliament adopts “The Impact of Advertising on Consumers’ behaviour” report.

On December the 15^th of December 2010, the European Parliament adopted “The Impact of Advertising on Consumers’ behaviour” report. This text was an initiative from Mr Philippe Juvin (French, PPE). The members of the European Parliament agreed on the fact that advertising is valuable and that the level of auto regulation is high. They also settled on the principle that consumers must be warned about the new intrusive and misleading advertising techniques, which are widely present on the Internet and often personalized according to people’s personal characteristics.

The report also stresses the importance of a better protection of vulnerable consumers and emphasizes the role that advertising has on image building and calls to fight against stereotypes. In order to improve consumers’ safety and enhance transparency, the report encourages the European Commission to develop an official EU website on labelling systems and confidentiality models which certify data protection standards for websites.

Mr Philippe Juvin’s report underlines the phenomenon that advertising often conveys discriminatory and despicable messages, often based on stereotypes and sexism. To fight against this issue, the report requests reconsideration and progress of “extremely shallow models” from agencies and media professionals so as to “avoid harmful messages based on stereotyped physical characteristics”.