The EU’s Data Protection Board (EDPB) has told large online platforms they should not offer users a binary choice between paying for a service and consenting to their personal data being used to provide targeted advertising.
In October last year, the social media giant said it would be possible to pay Meta to stop Instagram or Facebook feeds of personalized ads and prevent it from using personal data for marketing for users in the EU, EEA, or Switzerland. Meta then announced a subscription model of €9.99/month on the web or €12.99/month on iOS and Android for users who did not want their personal data used for targeted advertising.
At the time, Felix Mikolasch, data protection lawyer at noyb, said: “EU law requires that consent is the genuine free will of the user. Contrary to this law, Meta charges a ‘privacy fee’ of up to €250 per year if anyone dares to exercise their fundamental right to data protection.”
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Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
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I honestly don’t understand how what Facebook is doing a bad thing. The deal has always been that targeted advertising is how you pay for a free service.
This isn’t exclusive to Facebook.
Offering an ad free experience for a subscription fee is an extremely common practice. Do people really expect to be able to use an entertainment platform for free?
From what I understand the GDPR says you have to give users a real choice about the usage of their data, without any unreasonable negative repercussions. Having to pay money (at least as much as they are asking for) is such an unacceptable repercussion, no matter how FB might phrase it.
They are allowed to take money or show ads for access, but they can’t couple that decision with the one about the user’s data usage.
How is it unacceptable? Facebook has no onus to offer their services free of charge, and nobody is required to use Facebook.
Your options would be pay for it with cash, pay for it with advertising, or don’t use the service.
It seems like the EU is trying to say Facebook is a necessary service, which is bogus.
FTFY.
That part is not allowed according to the GDPR afaik, the decision about your personal data cannot be artificially linked to something else. They can absolutely show ads, but without using your data.
FTFY.
The adverts on free websites for a very long time were not targeted.
Yes, they were except for the very early days of the internet.
They might not have been as targeted, but they still absolutely used whatever data they had available to serve ads to people most likely to click on them.
They aren’t attacking the business model, they are specifically attacking Facebook because it is distorting the market and destroying competition.
But this rule is all but exclusive to companies that are so big they are operating in a non-competitive market as defined by new EU regulations. Companies can still do it, Facebook and five others can’t. If your platform gets so big that people can’t find alternatives easily, you get on the list, and you can’t do that any more either.
There is no requirement on Facebook to offer a free service. They can ask for as much money they want or not ask for money. They just can’t make data harvesting mandatory for any customers. This is not a judgment of the business model, this is just acknowledging that some platforms have become so big that you can’t live your life without them, so their interest to free commerce and self-determination is secondary to the basic right to privacy that all EU citizens have.
You can absolutely live your life without Facebook.
The point is, not everyone can. Some businesses only have Facebook pages as their online presence. The network effects, especially in the older generations, are still very strong.
The EU had to draw the line somewhere. Facebook is over that line with the amount of people still on there.
You’re also free to not give business to places that only have Facebook pages as their online presence.
Facebook is not a necessity. Full stop.
I think you don’t understand the issue. The problem is not whether you can get around using Facebook in your life, the problem is whether people in general will get around using it. The numbers show they won’t, so they need to be regulated in order to protect free markets.
I know people who lived without Facebook for years who created an account just to get info from their kids’ sports clubs. A lot of them only post data about events and stuff on the Facebook page. No newsletters or anything. Just Facebook.
They don’t really have a choice. You don’t want to ask other parents all the time and they won’t send you an email specifically because you won’t create a profile.
I fully agree with your statement. But in the case above the only alternative is to either annoy other parents every week, not send your kids to scouts camp with all their friends, or just create the profile and only look at those pages.
A lot of clubs removed their website in favour of a private Facebook page. It’s unfortunate, but a reality. :(
I have been for years. It was a massive improvement when I deleted my Facebook account.
Likewise. I only still have it for our neighborhood group chat and occasionally marketplace, but that’s maybe a twice a year thing.
No. If facebook wants, it can make the subscription mandatory, so only ppl who pay may access their service.
It’s bad because the subscription fee is ridiculous high compared, and only for one reason.
And that’s getting you to consent, because comprehensive data is worth more for them.
Also, the whole point is to give back users the right to their data. They don’t take away Facebooks right to show ads.
Selling personal data is not equal showing ads.
I guess you didn’t read the article, then. This isn’t about them selling the data they gathered, only about letting you pay for an ad free experience.
No this is also not correct. Paying for an ad free experience still seems to be valid.
What was ruled here is, that it is not considered a free choice to choose between paying money or paying with your data to access the service.
According to the EU law the user consents to harvest the digital data must be freely given.
Always is a heck of a long time. Decades ago when ads on websites slowly became popular it was just ads. But no personalized targeting.
Extremely common practice does not make it good nor does it make it a good reason to normalize or ignore these things. For example exploitation in labor and in housing is also extremely common practice. No reason to make exploitation on the Internet seem like a fair game and expand it further. Sustainability should be a key word here in my point of view.
I think there’s a difference between “generic ads we show you to support our platform” and “we’re selling your data to other people to give us revenue, so you have to offset that loss”. The latter involves your privacy around data which is the target.
Yes, the nuance is that Facebook must offer an alternative that does not use personal data, even if it means losing some of the features compared to when you pay (either with money or authorizing them to sell your data).