Facebook breaks EU law against targeted advertising?

5 points by pashadee 2 years ago | 8 comments

Facebook have now thrown up a modal dialogue one must accept to continue. It says:

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Make a choice about your ads As part of changing laws in your region, you can now choose to continue using Meta Products for free by allowing us to use your info for ads. Or you can subscribe to use them without ads.

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Isn't this now illegal according to new EU law (thanks to the Norwegian precedent), which outlaws using personal info for targeted ads?

The law "impose[s] a ban on the processing of personal data for behavioural advertising on the legal bases of contract and legitimate interest across the entire European Economic Area."

Are they trying to coerce users into a 'decision' through the perception of choice? This document [1] notes:

"The dangers of consent being misused are particularly serious when consent is commodified, i.e., when it is given to obtain benefits that are extrinsic to the processing for which consent is requested, as is typically the case in targeted advertising."

The Register [2] noted: "Meta now will have to ask for a simple "yes" or "no" consent before using their personal data..."

The above modal is not a simple yes or no, or a yes or no at all. It seems to be an either my way or the highway.

[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2021/696967/IPOL_BRI(2021)696967_EN.pdf [2] https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/02/meta_eu_gdpr_advertising/

soueuls 2 years ago |

I don’t like Meta but what is the alternative? Forcing them to provide the service for free?

To me : either you consent to let us make money using your data, or you agree to pay the service with your money or you stop using the service.

Seems pretty fair

jlpcsl 2 years ago | |

Nope. They should make money without spying on users and abusing their privacy. If they can not do it, then they should not exist, simple as that. Basic human rights should not be taken away in no case.

przeor 2 years ago | | |

It's not working like that. It's your choice what you use.

It's like alcohol, people use it even they know it's bad.

Govt is spying on you, but you can't delete account with them. With fb at least you can xD

HenryBemis 2 years ago |

I don't believe profiling (targeted ads) is illegal. GDPR does not block profiling. It's just that in cases such this, a Data Protection Threshold Assessment would produce a "Yes" and thus force the data processor to create a Data Protection Impact Assessment (to ensure that data subjects' data is/are protected (as per Article 32 - https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...)

"Taking into account the state of the art, the costs of implementation and the nature, scope, context and purposes of processing as well as the risk of varying likelihood and severity for the rights and freedoms of natural persons, the controller and the processor shall implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure a level of security appropriate to the risk, including inter alia as appropriate"

Also Article 35 - Data protection impact assessment. (not pasting it here, it's tooooo long)

Profiling would be 'criminal' (not really) for decision making that can affect someone's life (i.e. approval for a mortgage, accepting/rejecting request to obtain nationality, etc.) The profiling/decision whether to see an ad about cars vs motorbikes it not hurting you. If we are talking about the cases like Target-2012-pregnant (https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...) well no GDPR there.

Also, considering the impact of the brand new EU-US DPF, Meta is Active on it (https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov/s/participant-search/pa...) it should make Meta's (and many others' US-based companies life VERY easy to siphon data)(but they still have to act responsibly and under the EU-US DPF).

wisienkas 2 years ago | |

I think the idea is that targetted ads and the whole "manipulation" industry can profile you so well, nowadays that you are coerced into buying products you might not have wanted to buy, however by abusing your emotions and interests, they successfully manage to scam you into buying. This is a consequence on the individual, hence why the briefing come into play.