Platforms should not confront users with 'binary choice' over personal data use

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.”

  • DrWeevilJammerEnglish
    10·
    7 months ago

    Not seeing ads for GEICO on your car’s dashboard doesn’t mean that Toyota isn’t gathering as much data as they can about you via the platform they built and then selling that information to GEICO.

    As well as information about who you are, Toyota can also collect your “driving behavior.” This includes information such as your “acceleration and speed, steering, and braking functionality, and travel direction.” It may also gather your in-vehicle preferences, favorite locations saved on its systems, and images gathered by external cameras or sensors.

    Some models of Toyota can also scan your face for face recognition when you enter one of its vehicles.

    Source

    • garrett@infosec.pubEnglish
      1·
      7 months ago

      And that is totally unreasonable collection, of course. It’s also completely incomparable to pretending that Facebook is as necessary as a car (at least in America).

      • BolexForSoup@kbin.social
        1·
        7 months ago

        If your bar is “we only have rights when it comes to things that we can’t live without“ then not only are you creating your own arbitrary standards that is not reflected in our society, but you should be angry if you think that’s how things work.

        You have rights dude. Stop trying to win an online argument/defending business in such a bizarre way. There are limits to what they can do whether they re essential services or not.

        Besides, you have kind of lost the thread here. It’s not about whether or not they can advertise or charge. It’s about how they collect and use your data in service of advertising (and more). It’s in the first sentence of the article.

        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.

        Facebook is free to have an ad tier and a pay tier. It’s about the data they collect and how it’s used.