On March 26, 2009, the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) issued a report on online advertising (La publicité ciblée en ligne) that was adopted during its plenary session on February 5, 2009. The report states that although online advertising has developed into a strategic component of business models, in many respects it also constitutes a threat to privacy (e.g., unclear purposes of online data collection, lack of information, ineffective opt-out mechanisms, etc.). The CNIL considers that in many cases online advertising does not comply with the French Data Protection Act and calls for more transparency, clear and userfriendly privacy notices, and increased use of the “opt-in” principle. The CNIL also encourages businesses to adopt a code of conduct and to develop more effective tools allowing Internet users to have control over their data. The full report is available (in French) here.