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.”
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?
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).
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.
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.
No. If facebook wants, it can make the subscription mandatory, so only ppl who pay may access their service.
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.