I believe you’re allowed to run ads on free tiers and offer to remove them by paying. You’re not however allowed to track people without their consent, thus you can’t force personalised ads on users, and say that the only way to get rid of the privacy invasion is to pony up.
Comment on Facebook and Instagram’s “pay or consent” ad model violates the DMA, says the EU
randomaccount43543@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Lots of other websites have already copied the “pay or consent” ad model
dojan@lemmy.world 4 months ago
NoRodent@lemmy.world 4 months ago
The biggest Czech website (Seznam.cz) recently changed their policy and now force you to choose between: free tier with personalised ads or paid tier with anonymous ads. Yes, you’re reading it right, even if you pay, it doesn’t get rid of ads, they just stop tracking you. I have no idea whether it’s legal but the EU should definitely take a look.
dojan@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Yes, you’re reading it right, even if you pay, it doesn’t get rid of ads, they just stop tracking you.
🤢🤮
I hate what the internet has become.
xthexder@l.sw0.com 4 months ago
I’ve been using an ad blocker for at least 15 years. I’m not about to stop now. I can’t imagine paying only to see less relevant ads…
tja@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
IANAL, but: Gdpr only says that they cannot require you to sell your data to use a service. It does not say anything about paying with money. So this seems legal to me
sudneo@lemm.ee 4 months ago
The GDPR says that if you use consent as the legal basis for processing data, such consent must be free. This means that there cannot be consequences if you give or not give the consent. If there are, then the consent is not free anymore. Paying money for a service is absolutely legal, obviously, what probably is not legal is extracting your consent by offering you a discount (which is the flipside of “pay to avoid tracking”).
I just wanted to specify a bit, not that you said anything incorrect.
maynarkh@feddit.nl 4 months ago
The case is basically that having a non-tracking paid tier makes no difference, the free tier if it exists can’t include mandatory tracking.
So they can offer a paid tier with no tracking, but they must also offer no tracking on the free tier.
NoRodent@lemmy.world 4 months ago
But I mean, it’s the same thing as this FB/IG case, no? Only worse because even if you pay, you still have ads.
grue@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Sucks to be them, LOL!
bizzle@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Won’t someone please think of the shareholders 😭
Zak@lemmy.world 4 months ago
The relevant section of the DMA imposes restrictions on designated gatekeepers. It does not apply to websites that are not designated as gatekeepers.
That behavior might be questionable under the GDPR though.
variaatio@sopuli.xyz 4 months ago
Main issue comes from GDPR. When one uses the consent basis for collecting and using information it has to be a free choice. Thus one can’t offer “Pay us and we collect less information about you”. Hence “pay or consent” is blatantly illegal. Showing ads in generic? You don’t need consent. That consent is “I vote with my browser address bar”. Thing just is nobody anymore wants to use non tracked ads…
So in this case DMA 5(2) is just basically re-enforcement and emphasis of previous GDPR principle. from verge
from the regulation
surprise 2016/679 is… GDPR. So yeah it’s new violation, but pretty much it is “Gatekeepers are under extra additional scrutiny for GDPR stuff. You violate, we can violate you for both GDPR and DMA violation, plus with some extra rules and explicity for DMA”.