When Eric Schmidt argued recently that online display advertising could become a $200 billion industry within the next decade, his words triggered thousands of bullshit detectors across the media industry.

Today, online display is worth a mere $17 billion globally. Relatively few publishers buy the story that Mr. Schmidt is selling.

For many, online display remains an island of potential in a sea of disappointment. As a media agency executive told me on the sidelines of a recent conference: “Online display has been broken for a long time, and everyone knows it.”

This, however, remains the medium that will not die. In fact, online display remains central to the post-print future of the news industry. Even at Wapping, where locked-down paywalls are proliferating, online display has a role to play. (Which explains why News International is putting research like this into the market.)

The good news is that online display has been experiencing a determined, if patchy, renaissance. Growth has returned in the wake of recession. But data is also playing a role. FT.com, for example, employs a team of 12 data analysts to mine the clickstream for insights that encourage advertisers to pay higher prices. At Associated Newspapers, home of Mail Online, eight data analysts crunch the numbers. It’s a start: the most optimistic publishers talk of arresting the downward trend in CPMs and running big brand campaigns worth £1m plus. Some even think that publishers might be able to generate additional revenues by selling user data to advertisers.

Yet as so often in the history of online display, there’s a challenge on the horizon: an amendment to article 5.3 of the EU’s ePrivacy Directive 2002/58/EC, which is scheduled to be incorporated into UK law on May 25.

The amendment is the legacy of Viviane Reding (pictured), the former journalist who has just rounded off a five-year term as European commissioner for information society and media. Here, for the record, is what the amendment says:

“Member States shall ensure that the storing of information, or the gaining of access to information already stored, in the terminal equipment of a subscriber or user is only allowed on condition that the subscriber or user concerned has given his or her consent, having been provided with clear and comprehensive information… about the purposes of the processing.”

The suggestion is that publishers, in very near future, will need to obtain prior consent from users before dropping cookies into their browsers.

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