Streaming Platforms and Profiling – Risks and Opportunities for the Discoverability of Diversified Cultural Content

Abstract

This contribution aims to address risks and opportunities for cultural diversity resulting from platforms’ personalisation tools based on a legal analysis of the main provisions of the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on consumer profiling and automated decisions, as well as a sample of data protection policies of selected streaming platforms. It examines how the latter may in practice affect the protection of consumers’ personal data for the purpose of recommending personalised audio-visual and music content online and how such provisions relate to the discoverability of a diversified cultural offer online and, at the European level, the obligation for platforms to give prominence to European works in their catalogues. The paper shows that a lot may still be done to improve the transparency of algorithms used for personalisation purposes and to provide users with greater control of their data, as required by the GDPR.