Comment on Facebook and Instagram’s “pay or consent” ad model violates the DMA, says the EU
dojan@lemmy.world 1 week agoI 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.
NoRodent@lemmy.world 1 week 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 1 week ago
🤢🤮
I hate what the internet has become.
xthexder@l.sw0.com 1 week 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…
dojan@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Which will work great until corporations implement systems that force it onto us. Microsoft building it into the operating system. Mozilla acquiring advertising companies and implementing AI bullshit. Google edging closer to having a monopoly on browsers.
tja@sh.itjust.works 1 week 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 1 week 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 1 week 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.
tja@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
That’s correct. But this is only the case because of the DMA, mit the Gdpr
NoRodent@lemmy.world 1 week 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.
tja@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
No.