Mr. Paolo Cesarini:

The two issues are separate. What can be done in the perspective of the review of the e-commerce directive would point more towards the issue of fairness in a commercial relationship than to the legitimate use of personal data for micro targeting purposes, which is within the realm of the GDPR. One point I would like to stress is that micro targeting is only one of the possible vulnerabilities of the ecosystem. When we talk about disinformation, clickbait, which works by directing traffic into a malicious website, operates in a different way. Micro targeting is typical for sponsored content and that is certainly an issue that needs to be addressed. Then there are other issues that are not necessarily data-driven or are not so linked to the use of personal data. For instance, the manipulation of media for amplification purposes where bot accounts behave in a co-ordinated manner and the trade of engagement indices or signals in the black market are not necessarily linked to the manipulation of personal data. Another issue about personal data may appear in the area of algorithmic bias. When the recommendation system operates in order to provide the user with certain recommendations, there we have an issue again with the usage of personal data.