EU tells Meta it can't paywall privacy

Submitted ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨privacyguides@lemmy.one⁩

https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/18/eu_meta_subscription_privacy/

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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The_Mastermind@mander.xyz ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
WARNING: THREAD CONTAINS BOOTLICKERS Hey there user tread lightly this thread have bootlickers .

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- Emmie@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  We could do away with such attention seeking comments tbh, it’s good that some have different views imo because you can argue with them. Isn’t that the point of this site?
  
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  - bleistift2@feddit.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    This is lemmy. Any valid argument is shat out by the devil himself if it might be construed to support the perceived “strong one” in a relationship.
    
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  - lud@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Lemmy is really just an echo chamber.
    
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- Baku@aussie.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It’s not really that bad. It was 1 single comment chain. If you don’t want to read the debate, it’s a fairly trivial task to collapse the parent comment and carry on with your day.
  
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bleistift2@feddit.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
I’m all for GDPR and really enjoy its protections, but I don’t understand this one. If facebook says they need €10/mo to provide their services and gives us the choice to either pay that or to pay with targeted ads, then how does that infringe upon our data integrity? The service seems to be worth something, so the EU cannot expect facebook to just give it out for less, can they? What’s the basis for this?

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- TheEntity@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  They can just charge €10/mo like every other company does, for example Netflix. They can’t offer it as an alternative to the “freely given consent”. It’s not freely given if the alternative is to pay to not give this consent.
  
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  - pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You’re free to not use Facebook.
    
    Also, your argument breaks down because there are plenty of free streaming platforms that use targeted advertising as payment for their services.
    
    If anything, Facebook doing this is surprising because they’re making data collection opt-in.
    
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  - bleistift2@feddit.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    The do charge €10/mo like every other company does, and they add the possibility to not pay and rather see targeted advertisement. How is that worse?
    
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- krcr@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  They can put all the ads they want to finance their services, but if they want to use targeted ones, they have to ask for unbiased users consent.
  
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  - bleistift2@feddit.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I can’t find the word ‘unbiased’ in the GDPR. All it asks for is consent:
    
    Processing shall be lawful only if and to the extent that at least one of the following applies:
    
    a) the data subject has given consent to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purposes;
    
    In the case of facebook, the user gives consent for the purpose of being served targeted advertising in exchange for the provided service.
    
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  - bleistift2@feddit.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Suppose non-targeted ads didn’t generate enough revenue. Would it then be legitimate to require facebook to provide their service at a loss?
    
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- snooggums@midwest.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Meta is currently acooping all my data as someone who does not a Meta account, which I would need to create ao I could pay them money not to do that.
  
  No, not all the targeted advertising that they collect data for is through Facebook/whatever else they own now.
  
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  - bleistift2@feddit.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    That is a completely different issue. On the one hand, meta does collect data on people who do not have an account. This is simply illegal, since that collection is neither necessary nor consented to. The EU should finally put a stop to that.
    
    On the other hand we have the voluntary relationship a user enters with facebook by creating an account. This is what the article is about and what I was referring to in my comment – the “binary choice between paying for a service and consenting to their personal data being used to provide targeted advertising”
    
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- mavu@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I didn’t read the massive thread, no idea if the correct answer is already in there, but there seems to be a lot of text and the answer is realy short.:
  
  This does not prohibit them from using Ads to finance the service.
  It just prohibits data collection.
  Those two things are not the same.
  
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  - lud@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    It also doesn’t prohibit Facebook from being a purely paid service.
    
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- ultratiem@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Privacy is a fundamental human right. It’s not a luxury or a means to extort or monetize customers. That’s why the EU is getting involved. Because companies like Meta will leverage them against monetization.
  
  It’s like going to your doctor and having them tell you that unless you pay them $50 for the visit, they’ll sell your medical data to whomever.
  
  A company has to build their services on top of privacy and security, not use either as a means to monetize or boost profits. That’s what the EU is fighting for. Because we all know what happens when it’s left up to the companies…
  
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- BolexForSoup@kbin.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  This assumes everyone who values privacy can afford another $10mo sub in their life. People with more disposable income have better access. In an issue of consent that shouldn’t be the case.
  
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  - pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Using Facebook is not something that’s necessary. You’re asking a company to give away services for free.
    
    The whole reason it’s free is because you are the product, and it’s almost always been that way. If you value your privacy and don’t want to pay for Facebook, that’s a personal decision, and the government shouldn’t be involved.
    
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  - bleistift2@feddit.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    You’re framing this as if a facebook account were mandatory. If you can’t afford $10 per month, don’t use facebook. I don’t.
    
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- racemaniac@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Just wondering, do you know that reading the article where it’s all explained in detail is an option?
  
  Before the change 3% of facebook users agreed to be tracked, after “pay or be tracked” suddenly that jumped to over 90%. The entire point of GDPR is that privacy is a really hard thing to grasp, and that companies have capabilities most people can’t even imagine. So the GDPR demands consent to be given freely. Giving users the choice between yet another subscription or “consent” is clearly not free consent, your “free consent” doesn’t jump from 3% to 90% if you’re not basically coercing your users.
  
  “yeah, but they have the option to pay”. Yeah, and then i can start paying for google (each service seperately with complex bundles of course), and facebook, and reddit, and twitter and tiktok and … and of course everyone has hundreds of dollars to spend on online services to continue using the internet the way we’ve been using it for a decade.
  
  “yeah, but you could use other services”, yeah, i could go to a facebook alternative where none of my friends or family are. Or a youtube alternative where hardly anyone posts videos or… These sites have gained a natural monopoly by being free, and now suddenly i have to pay to not have my rights violated.
  
  And will this long term mean sites like facebook, youtube, … become unprofitable and collapse? I for sure hope so yes. These companies gained a monopoly in big parts of the internet, and will make insane profits of being in that position either via ads or subscriptions. This is a terrible place for society to be in, and the sooner they collapse, the sooner we as society can start figuring out what would be a model that does work and isn’t hostile to its user.
  
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- LWD@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  gives us the choice to either pay that or to pay with targeted ads,
  
  Facebook never offered that choice. The only options were
  
  Free: All of your data gets and used sold (and you get ads)
  
  Paid: All of your data gets used and sold (except for the stuff that would usually be used to show ads)
  
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- archomrade@midwest.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  They can still serve you ads, they simply cannot help themselves to your data.
  
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- pearsaltchocolatebar@discuss.online ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah, to me it sounds like Facebook is making targeted advertising opt-in, which is a good thing.
  
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  - Ephera@lemmy.ml ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    It should have been opt-in since the GDPR went into force. This is Facebook winding around it.
    
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tearsintherain@leminal.space ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Facebook and Instagram, two of the worst digital creations of all time in terms of sheer damage to human beings.

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- techwithjake@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Not to defend Instagram cause fuck Meta. I’m curious how it would’ve turned out if Meta didn’t buy them way back. Same with WhatsApp. Could they have been great apps now a days instead of deserving of our scourn?
  
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  - HeavyRaptor@lemmy.zip ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    I remember Instagram when it was new. It was an actually photography app. Of course it had the edgy filters (which ~15 year old me made full use of). But the pictures people posted actually had a bit of effort behind them.
    
    Then it started becoming another mainstream social media where most pictures were about people’s lunches. I didn’t stick around for it’s final phase of business ads and thots.
    
    I think it lost the cool factor by the time FB bought it but maybe it would’ve taken longer to become as ad-infested as it is today
    
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pelespirit@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Noice. I hope meta doesn’t finagle their way out of it.

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Emmie@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Hmmm it looks like social media became a basic necessity

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archomrade@midwest.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
The thing that jumps out to me here is that mobile data is apparently worth 20% more than web data and that in no way surprises me but very much pisses me off

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- PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Pretty sure it’s because both Apple and Google shave a commission off the top of any in-app purchases. So if you buy a subscription in the app, Meta would actually make less money. So to compensate, they increase the price for in-app purchases.
  
  Alternatively, it could be because adblockers are less prevalent on mobile. Even casual desktop users have begun using adblockers, but very few people block ads on mobile.
  
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- Marighost@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It may be higher for two reasons. First thing I thought of, they’re accounting for Play Store/iOS fees. Second, I guarantee there’s loads more mobile users they can make a few more pennies off of.
  
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  - archomrade@midwest.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    As far as I know, the service fees only apply to apps that charge for their app or have in-app purchases.
    
    I assume that difference has more to do with the value of ads being higher on a smartphone given the abundance of data that isn’t available via browser.
    
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bobbytables@feddit.de ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Huh, I’m curious how this one turns out. Lots of German news outlets use some kind of privacy paywall for their websites. Its always some pop-up with “read the article for free with tracking or subscribe to [newspaper name] Pure/Plus”. So this might affect way more smaller companies than just Meta.

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Samsy@lemmy.ml ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
If I were an advertiser, the people who pay for privacy would become my primary target.

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autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:

It followed requests by the Dutch, Norwegian, and Hamburg Data Protection Authorities and complaints about Meta, the social media company that owns Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram.

“Most users consent to the processing in order to use a service, and they do not understand the full implications of their choices,” EDPB chair Anu Talus said in a statement.

But a Meta spokesperson said: "Last year, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that the subscriptions model is a legally valid way for companies to seek people’s consent for personalized advertising.

In November last year, privacy activist group noyb (None Of Your Business) filed a complaint with the Austrian data protection authority against Meta for introducing the subscription model.

At the time, Felix Mikolasch, data protection lawyer at noyb, said: "EU law requires that consent is the genuine free will of the user.

In February, consumer groups filed their own complaint to stop Meta giving EU users a “fake choice” between the subscription offer and consenting to being profiled and tracked via data collection.

The original article contains 556 words, the summary contains 174 words. Saved 69%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

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- Rolando@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  privacy activist group noyb (None Of Your Business)
  
  More info about them:
  
  noyb.eu/en
  
  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOYB
  
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