The Evolution of PETs in Digital Ads: Genuine Privacy Innovation or Market Power Play?  

  • Panel
  • Maritime
  • Thursday 22.05 — 14:15 - 15:30

Organising Institution

Mozilla

United States

  • Academic 1
  • Business 3
  • Policy 2
The online advertising sector is at a turning point. Digital advertising depends both on aggressive data collection practices and on excessive data sharing between platforms and advertisers. This, in turn raises serious privacy and competition concerns. Regulators step up enforcement and industry players explore alternatives to existing privacy-intrusive practices. Developments in Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) offer a promising way to protect user privacy. However, not all PETs are created equal. While they can reduce data exposure, PETs are often deployed in ways that reinforce the market power of dominant players rather than serve as a true privacy-preserving alternative. In some cases, PETs risk becoming a form of privacy-washing—providing a veneer of compliance while maintaining the same underlying data control structures that limit competition. This panel will examine the potential of PETs in digital advertising. the regulatory steps needed to incentivize their adoption while at the same time prevent them from becoming another tool for industry consolidation.  

Questions to be answered

  1. How can we move towards a more privacy-respecting and transparent advertising ecosystem while maintaining the economic sustainability of the open web? What are the key challenges in making this shift at both the policy and technological levels?
  2. What is the role of PETs in ad targeting and measurement? Which technologies are leading the way? Are there trade-offs in efficiency, accuracy, or scalability?
  3. What role should regulation play in ensuring that PETs foster competition rather than deepen power asymmetries? How do GDPR, DMA, and emerging policies shape the adoption and deployment of PETs in advertising?
  4. Could the widespread adoption of PETs further entrench existing industry concentration? How can we differentiate between genuine privacy-preserving PETs and those that merely maintain the status quo?

Moderator

Kirsten Nelson-de Búrca

Mozilla - International

Kirsten Nelson de Búrca is a Product Policy Manager for Ads at Mozilla, where she focuses on the intersection of advertising, privacy, and emerging technologies. With a background spanning product development, regulation, and technology's impact on society, Kirsten brings a multidisciplinary lens to tech policy.

Speaker

Graham Mudd

Anonym - International

Worked at Meta for 10 years as VP, Business Product Marketing (includes ads team), SVP, Media Practice, Comscore. Led ads privacy product & market strategy, driving Zuckerberg-level strategy decisions. Prior strategic leader of Facebook's direct response, brand, emerging markets and app advertising businesses.

Speaker

Vincenzo Tiani

Future of Pivacy Forum - International

Vincenzo Tiani is an EU Senior Policy Counsel at the Future of Privacy Forum, based in Brussels, where he primarily focuses on the intersection of data protection and AI. Prior to joining FPF, Vincenzo’s career included roles at the European Parliament, where he focused on European Copyright reform; EDRi, an NGO dedicated to protecting citizens’ fundamental rights online; and CDT, the Center for Democracy & Technology, an international organization that safeguards fundamental rights online and works to maintain a free and innovative Internet. From October 2020 to November 2024, he worked as the Resident Partner of PANETTA Law Firm in Brussels, representing the firm.

Speaker

Arletta Gorecka

Glasgow International College - United Kingdom

Dr. Arletta Gorecka is currently acting as a Law Lecturer at the Glasgow International College, Glasgow. She is a legal scholar specialising in EU competition law, privacy, and data protection, with a PhD exploring their interplay in the digital economy. Author of "The Interface between Competition Law and Data Privacy Law” (Springer, 2024) and a prolific contributor to leading journals, she bridges academia, policy, and practice in advancing competition law and digital market regulation.

Speaker

Aymeric Pontvianne

CNIL - France

Head of the Economic analysis team at CNIL, the French data protection authority, for two years, Aymeric created the CNIL sandbox program for innovators and prepared the CNIL White Paper on means of payment and payment data. He and is also co-coordinator of the EDPB subgroup on cross-regulatory interplay and cooperation. Graduate of the Ecole nationale d’administration, he holds a Master 2 degree in Economics and occupied various positions within the French Treasury, dealing with european economic and financial matters.