No wonder, as the large majority of participants were from the industry, many of them full-time payed to prepare for this event. Arguing against this is exhaustingly hard, but it gets much easier if you are not alone. Thanks to @finnmyrstad, @CenDemTech Politiscope, Digital Rights Ireland, @noybeu and others for being a strong voice against tracking! #TeamDatenschutz

To summarize: Industry actors for the most part do not seem to care much at all about privacy. Unsurprisingly, they argue behavioral advertising is essential to their business model and that regulators should keep out. They kept repeating the libertarian idea that the freedom to conduct business should not be impeded by the fundamental right to privacy. In the short summaries of the #EDPB at the end, sadly positions from civil society were hard to find.

@finnmyrstad also puts it fittingly: The industry seems to be quite afraid of innovation. Funny, as this is what they generally can not stop talking about.

The BVDW fittingly summarizes their position. OH: "Privacy first? No. Not in the current situation."
I would suggest they read the #GDPR again.

Another threat to users coming up: If you don’t want to "consent" into tracking, adtech will make the ads extremely annoying. They just have no other choice. 🤡 Facebook recently threatened this (https://noyb.eu/en/ads-meta-wants-be-less-illegal-much-more-annoying), now it is also coming up here. To me, this reaks of a dark pattern, which should be thoroughly investigated.

I have been waiting for this argument to appear: One Tracking proponent argues that small businesses need behavioral advertising to reach their customers. What they are undercutting: Small businesses are extremely dependent on adtech companies if they rely on them to show their ads through real time bidding. However, there is no real reason, why tracking is needed for small busniesses to place ads. This is not about small businesses, this is about revenue streams of advertising companies!

One argument which came up: Advertising companies want to prevent fraud by publishers (see how they support the media?!) and therefore have to track even if there is no behavioral advertising. However, why should I care about this as a user? The burden of proof is on the tracking companies here: Does tracking really prevent fraud and is it the least invasive way to do that? We highly doubt that.