sec_4_2_7__para__4

Persuading consumers to engage with the trader’s content is an essential part of commercial practices and of advertising in particular, both in the online and offline world. However, the digital environment enables traders to employ their practices more effectively on the basis of consumer data, with high scalability and even dynamically in real time. Traders can develop personalised persuasion practices because they benefit from superior knowledge based on aggregated data about consumer behaviour and preferences, for example by linking data from different sources. Traders can also have the possibility to make adjustments to improve the effectiveness of their practices, as they continuously test the effects of their practices on consumers and thereby learn more about their behaviour (e.g. through A/B testing). Furthermore, such practices could often be employed without the full knowledge of the consumer. It is the presence of these factors and their opaqueness that distinguishes, on the one hand, highly persuasive advertising or sales techniques from, on the other hand, commercial practices that may be manipulative and, hence, unfair under consumer law. In addition, they may be in breach of transparency obligations under GDPR or the ePrivacy Directive.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-25 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.