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.”
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?
But there’s also no ad-supported cars.
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.
Source
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).
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.
Facebook is free to have an ad tier and a pay tier. It’s about the data they collect and how it’s used.
What does the monetization scheme have to do with whether or not we have consumer and privacy rights beyond how it infringes on them?
The point was that it’s apples to oranges. Monetization is kinda the key issue here unless you’re ready to declare Facebook a utility and publicly fund it. Personally, I’d rather we be rid of it entirely.
Of course ad-supported services are infringing on your privacy in a way but if you’re not ready to call Facebook a publicly-funded utility, it’s childish to act like it’s so essential that it should be entirely ad-free with no paid tier.
You are presenting a false dichotomy and ads do not have to infringe on your privacy to the degree Facebook does it. There are gradients.
You’re reducing these arguments so much they’re losing the nuance that warrants the entire discussion. You’re also calling me childish to boot, which doesn’t give me much hope for the rest of this conversation
That is a valid, nuanced take that this article and (seemingly) the legislation don’t get into.
The first sentence of the article establishes my argument
It’s the means of creating their targeted advertising that is in question. Not the act of advertising itself.
You’re arguing as if it says “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 having ads.” I encourage you to read the article If you haven’t already
Yet.
Only cause they can’t interject ads while driving lol
They’ll try, I’m sure. Tesla and law abiding don’t go well together.
You have the right to not own a car. But if you do, you must have insurance for it (in Germany, at least). You cannot hide behind GDPR and say “I have a right to my data. I must not be asked to give it to any insurer without my consent.” You also need to have a driver’s license with your name and photo on it. GDPR doesn’t protect you there, either.
The bottom line is: Using a product may come with responsibilities or other concessions. You have the right to not use the product if the concessions aren’t worth it to you. You do not have the right to any product if you refuse the obligations that come with it.
This is, of course, my own opinion based on my understanding of how the world should work.
They can’t assign any concessions they wants that’s the entire point. You have rights you can’t sign away even if you want to. I mean dude you’re defending facebook, arguably the single worst company when it comes to respecting user data and privacy. Your assumption should be they are probably wrong until proven otherwise.
That’s argumentum ad hominem. If the law means what you think it means, it applies whether we’re talking about EvilCorp or SaveTheWhaleChildrenBeeFluff.
Also recall the very first thing I said on this topic:
I’m playing devil’s advocate in order to gain insight, because I have no clue how this board reaches its conclusions.
Don’t it’s obnoxious and not insightful. It’s how teens test drive arguments without repercussions.
Oh, by the way… you have all those rights, but from now on you can only have them if you pay 10$/mo, otherwise we’ll take it upon ourselves to switching on all telemetry and cameras in your car and pass that data on to insurers and others.
Actually… it doesn’t even qualify as analogy, more like premonition.
What right is being infringed upon? Facebook is saying your options to use a private service are to pay for it, or receive targeted advertising.
You’re free to just not use any meta products like I do.
It’s not about the advertising. It’s that you have to pay money to opt out of their aggressive data collection. The advertising is just one thing they do with your data.
It’s the first sentence of the article.