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’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 [Edit: integrity autonomy]? 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?
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.
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.
The biggest problem with this approach is basically Facebook saying that you have to pay for a right, meaning, if the law tells you that you can, and should, always have a say if you are followed around or not, you mist have that capability. What Facebook is doing is put a right behind a paywall, which is absurd
Firstly, this is not “my argument”, this is EU’s argument.
Secondly, none of these platforms present it as a choice between paying and giving the kind of consent that by law needs to be optional and freely given.
Thirdly, being free to not use a service that is breaking the law does not make it any less illegal.
not really, its so ubiquitous some of their services cant be not used.
its impossible to exist in my country without whatsapp, most businesses do their customer service through whatsapp now.
You’re free to not own or use a car. Should we have no rights when it comes to cars as well?
You’re free to not use the internet. Should we have no rights online?
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.
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.
[Edit:] Found something:
When assessing whether consent is freely given, utmost account shall be taken of whether, […] the provision of a service, is conditional on consent to the processing of personal data that is not necessary for the performance of that contract. Article 7, paragraph 4 GDPR
So the question of whether the pay-or-consent model is legal hinges upon the question of whether payment (in any form) is “necessary for the performance of that contract“.
Suppose non-targeted ads didn’t generate enough revenue. Would it then be legitimate to require facebook to provide their service at a loss?
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.
That is a completely different issue. On the one hand, meta does collect data on people who do not have an account. [Edit: Source: https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics-computers/privacy/how-facebook-tracks-you-even-when-youre-not-on-facebook-a7977954071/] 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”
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.
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…
This assumes everyone who values privacy can afford another $10mo sub in their life or that it should cost money in the first place. In an issue of consent that shouldn’t be the case.
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.
Let’s say that I’ve never had a Facebook account, but Facebook still has a lot of data it has collected about me from multiple sources, including other Facebook users, who might post photos that I am in, or share information about me in posts, neither of which i gave consent to anyone to share.
Is it fair that my only option to protect my private information is to CREATE a Facebook account and pay them to STOP collecting and selling my private information?
You are conflating a lot of different things here and I’m a little too busy at work today to completely disentangle it, but the short version is that none of us are ignorant about what “free“ means online. That is not the debate here so I’m not sure why you’re going off on that when I don’t even disagree there in the first place. It’s just not relevant.
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.
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.
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 used and 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)
Yeah, to me it sounds like Facebook is making targeted advertising opt-in, which is a good thing.
