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Lawyers can say such things and I'm sure that Facebook will try to fight it, but I don't think they'll be able to do so successfully, because the GDPR is very s

Lawyers can say such things and I'm sure that Facebook will try to fight it, but I don't think they'll be able to do so successfully, because the GDPR is very specific about what a "legitimate interest" is. See here for an explanation: https://www.gdpreu.org/the-regulation/key-concepts/legitimate-interest/ https://www.gdpreu.org/the-regulation/key-concepts/legitimat... PS: the EU can't wait to give fat fines to companies like Facebook and Google, due to their tax evasion schemes. It's the whole reason for why these companies haven't been able to stop GDPR, with all of their lobbying prowess. And I don't care about such motives, as an EU citizen I'm glad that GDPR exists.

_bxg1 8y ago
As an American citizen I'm glad that GDPR exists. Our own government will never strongarm Big Tech into respecting their users - especially in this political climate - so I'm glad someone else is.
- mrep 8y ago
  I think it is naive at best. To me, it's like the EU is a spoiled child who wants everything for free without paying for it. Most of the web is payed for by targeted advertising and getting rid of that would make the web suck as their would be way less money to actually pay for content. Also, non-targeted ads suck as they usually end up being like Viagra ads since they pay the most.
  - ericst 8y ago
    I don't see what is naive. The EU has never said that you can't have ads. You can do ads without using and selling user data. For instance, you can have contextual ads (depending on what you read, not who you are) or just random ads. GDPR is not against the ad business, it is only setting limits and obligations on how you can use personal data. It is saying that it is not normal for businesses to build huge user profiles without oversight or even consideration.
    - Aunche 8y ago
      > GDPR is not against the ad business Yet somehow, I doubt that GDPR would exist if Google and Facebook were German companies, rather than American ones.
      - bad_user 8y ago
        Is that relevant in any way? And Germans are more privacy aware than Americans, for obvious historical reasons.
        Aunche 8y ago
        There's nothing inherently wrong with storing user data or using targeted advertising as long as it's not abused. Instead of outlawing only cases of abuse like any sensible law would do, the EU just chooses to throw the baby out with the bathwater because it's not their baby.
        oaiey 8y ago
        The EU tried that. Google and friends gave a shit. Then result was creating a regulation more painful to them. These companies apply their US based understanding of right and wrong to the globe. You see China, EU and Russia are reacting and applying their local rules. With different methods, but they do.
        bad_user 8y ago
        No, data can be sold or leaked and abused at any point in time, it doesn't matter that it doesn't happen right now. People that blame Cambridge Analytica are missing the point, which is that Facebook is a threat to everything we know just by existing.
      - oaiey 8y ago
        They would never be German companies. We (Germans) would have regulated them bancrupt long time ago :). You are right. GDPR is a very German thing. We essentially have a two digit party (the greens) which rose because of the rejection of a general census (and nuclear energy). In Europe we are also not alone with that (see pirate party). Oh and regards sensibility: The EU tried that. Google and friends gave a shit. Then result was creating a regulation more painful to them. These companies apply their US based understanding of right and wrong to the globe. You see China, EU and Russia are reacting and applying their local rules. With different methods, but they do.
  - bad_user 8y ago
    > non-targeted ads suck as they usually end up being like Viagra ads since they pay the most. Ads on TV have been non-targeted since the TV was invented, TV stations have survived thus far and are doing a little better than online publishers. Note that we are talking of tracking individuals. You can still say a lot about the demographics of a TV show and thus do ads targeting based on the actual content being watched. That's not user profiling and while you can infer a lot about those watching, it's not dangerous either, because you're not keeping a history of what that user watched. Saying that tracking individuals is necessary for getting revenue is disingenuous. Besides, in case you aren't watching the news, the biggest problem for publishers is by far ad-blocking, not GDPR. If they would have respected people's privacy, security and time, we wouldn't have been in this mess and we wouldn't need laws. In our country we have a saying, you sleep in the bed you make ;-)
    - mrep 8y ago
      > Saying that tracking individuals is necessary for getting revenue is disingenuous. I'm definitely not saying that. I'm saying non-targeted ads generate a lot less money than targeted ones which means the content on the internet won't be as good as companies will generate less money to pay for the content. In the extreme cases as we are seeing now, businesses are shutting down or blocking all EU users because the peanuts they would make from generic ads are not worth the server costs, content creation costs, costs to comply with the law, and potential fine costs (risk).
      - bad_user 8y ago
        Shutting down or blocking all EU users is perfectly fine by me. At least I'd know which are the companies I should stay away from. But no, it won't happen, because the EU is the world's second biggest market. If China can afford to coerce companies into censorship and violating people's rights, the EU can afford to impose some privacy laws as well. And as I've been saying elsewhere, targeted ads are only needed at this point because people are fed up with ads due to abuse, this being a race to the bottom anyway. Pretty soon targeted ads won't work well either, how well they work right now is questionable and all of that data will have been collected already, ready to be sold and abused.
  - _bxg1 8y ago
    Setting aside older ad-showing media (newspapers, magazines, cable TV), even the web itself did just fine before today's holistic individual ad-targeting. For the most part, today's problematic practices started happening after the Dot Com boom. It's amazing the point we've reached, where egregious tracking is so normalized that we assume it's fundamental to the internet's feasibility. Facebook and Google aren't meek charity-organizations, trying to give the world free stuff and only asking for the pittance of our data, to help keep the lights on. Their profit margins are enormous. They could do quite well for themselves without any tracking at all, just showing random ads. Not to mention that many people would pay for their services if it meant getting rid of ads altogether. The reason they don't offer individuals the option to pay for their services instead of being tracked isn't out of charity. It's because they would make less money. Your data is more valuable than any reasonable monthly fee you'd be willing to pay. If GDPR puts an end to the gold-rush that's happening at the expense of everyone else in society, forcing tech companies to make a normal amount of money instead of an insane amount of money, that sounds to me like an unambiguous good.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - maccard 8y ago
    > Also, non-targeted ads suck as they usually end up being like Viagra ads since they pay the most. You can still have targetted ads without tracking user data. Show ads for gaming content on eurogamer/ign, or ads for technology on techcrunch, or ads for Viagra on WebMD
ipsum2 8y ago
> EU can't wait to give fat fines to companies like Facebook and Google, due to their tax evasion schemes. How does GDPR relate to "tax evasion" at all? Also, Google and FB set up to pay taxes in Ireland, which is a member of the E.U. That seems legal to me. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement
- adventured 8y ago
  The 4% of worldwide revenue aspect is almost exclusively pointed at the giant US tech companies. Europe has few meaningfully large tech companies, with large global sales, such that taxing worldwide revenue matters (this is why they didn't just make it an EU revenue tax). It's meant to try to plunder some of the global revenue that Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Netflix, Apple, Amazon, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. are generating. They're betting that these companies will slip up at some point (who the hell taxes revenue, instead of profit, other than the backwards Russian state anyway?). Amazon is going to $400 billion in sales (and is about to have a giant, lucrative ad business). Google is going to $200 billion in sales. Facebook is going to $100 billion in sales. Netflix will have 250 million subscribers. Apple is pushing toward $250 billion in sales. GDPR itself wasn't designed just to tax the US giants. The 4% tax on worldwide revenue however does exist solely to try to get loot from the US tech dominance. As the EU gets left further and further behind the US tech colossus, their rage and envy will increase by the year. The Germans like to snark at the Americans about how they should build better cars. Well, Europe should learn to build better tech, and learn to pay their engineers what they're actually worth if they want to compete with the US that pays 3x or 5x more.
  - the_watcher 8y ago
    There's no 4% tax on revenue in the GDPR as far as I can tell. It's a 4% fine for violations. Which is potentially far greater than a 4% tax, since it applies to every violation.
    - DuskStar 8y ago
      If fines are impossible to avoid without going out of business or leaving the market, they're taxes by another name.

_bxg1 8y ago

As an American citizen I'm glad that GDPR exists. Our own government will never strongarm Big Tech into respecting their users - especially in this political climate - so I'm glad someone else is.

mrep 8y ago
I think it is naive at best. To me, it's like the EU is a spoiled child who wants everything for free without paying for it. Most of the web is payed for by targeted advertising and getting rid of that would make the web suck as their would be way less money to actually pay for content. Also, non-targeted ads suck as they usually end up being like Viagra ads since they pay the most.
- ericst 8y ago
  I don't see what is naive. The EU has never said that you can't have ads. You can do ads without using and selling user data. For instance, you can have contextual ads (depending on what you read, not who you are) or just random ads. GDPR is not against the ad business, it is only setting limits and obligations on how you can use personal data. It is saying that it is not normal for businesses to build huge user profiles without oversight or even consideration.
  - Aunche 8y ago
    > GDPR is not against the ad business Yet somehow, I doubt that GDPR would exist if Google and Facebook were German companies, rather than American ones.
    - bad_user 8y ago
      Is that relevant in any way? And Germans are more privacy aware than Americans, for obvious historical reasons.
      - Aunche 8y ago
        There's nothing inherently wrong with storing user data or using targeted advertising as long as it's not abused. Instead of outlawing only cases of abuse like any sensible law would do, the EU just chooses to throw the baby out with the bathwater because it's not their baby.
        oaiey 8y ago
        The EU tried that. Google and friends gave a shit. Then result was creating a regulation more painful to them. These companies apply their US based understanding of right and wrong to the globe. You see China, EU and Russia are reacting and applying their local rules. With different methods, but they do.
        bad_user 8y ago
        No, data can be sold or leaked and abused at any point in time, it doesn't matter that it doesn't happen right now. People that blame Cambridge Analytica are missing the point, which is that Facebook is a threat to everything we know just by existing.
    - oaiey 8y ago
      They would never be German companies. We (Germans) would have regulated them bancrupt long time ago :). You are right. GDPR is a very German thing. We essentially have a two digit party (the greens) which rose because of the rejection of a general census (and nuclear energy). In Europe we are also not alone with that (see pirate party). Oh and regards sensibility: The EU tried that. Google and friends gave a shit. Then result was creating a regulation more painful to them. These companies apply their US based understanding of right and wrong to the globe. You see China, EU and Russia are reacting and applying their local rules. With different methods, but they do.
- bad_user 8y ago
  > non-targeted ads suck as they usually end up being like Viagra ads since they pay the most. Ads on TV have been non-targeted since the TV was invented, TV stations have survived thus far and are doing a little better than online publishers. Note that we are talking of tracking individuals. You can still say a lot about the demographics of a TV show and thus do ads targeting based on the actual content being watched. That's not user profiling and while you can infer a lot about those watching, it's not dangerous either, because you're not keeping a history of what that user watched. Saying that tracking individuals is necessary for getting revenue is disingenuous. Besides, in case you aren't watching the news, the biggest problem for publishers is by far ad-blocking, not GDPR. If they would have respected people's privacy, security and time, we wouldn't have been in this mess and we wouldn't need laws. In our country we have a saying, you sleep in the bed you make ;-)
  - mrep 8y ago
    > Saying that tracking individuals is necessary for getting revenue is disingenuous. I'm definitely not saying that. I'm saying non-targeted ads generate a lot less money than targeted ones which means the content on the internet won't be as good as companies will generate less money to pay for the content. In the extreme cases as we are seeing now, businesses are shutting down or blocking all EU users because the peanuts they would make from generic ads are not worth the server costs, content creation costs, costs to comply with the law, and potential fine costs (risk).
    - bad_user 8y ago
      Shutting down or blocking all EU users is perfectly fine by me. At least I'd know which are the companies I should stay away from. But no, it won't happen, because the EU is the world's second biggest market. If China can afford to coerce companies into censorship and violating people's rights, the EU can afford to impose some privacy laws as well. And as I've been saying elsewhere, targeted ads are only needed at this point because people are fed up with ads due to abuse, this being a race to the bottom anyway. Pretty soon targeted ads won't work well either, how well they work right now is questionable and all of that data will have been collected already, ready to be sold and abused.
- _bxg1 8y ago
  Setting aside older ad-showing media (newspapers, magazines, cable TV), even the web itself did just fine before today's holistic individual ad-targeting. For the most part, today's problematic practices started happening after the Dot Com boom. It's amazing the point we've reached, where egregious tracking is so normalized that we assume it's fundamental to the internet's feasibility. Facebook and Google aren't meek charity-organizations, trying to give the world free stuff and only asking for the pittance of our data, to help keep the lights on. Their profit margins are enormous. They could do quite well for themselves without any tracking at all, just showing random ads. Not to mention that many people would pay for their services if it meant getting rid of ads altogether. The reason they don't offer individuals the option to pay for their services instead of being tracked isn't out of charity. It's because they would make less money. Your data is more valuable than any reasonable monthly fee you'd be willing to pay. If GDPR puts an end to the gold-rush that's happening at the expense of everyone else in society, forcing tech companies to make a normal amount of money instead of an insane amount of money, that sounds to me like an unambiguous good.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- maccard 8y ago
  > Also, non-targeted ads suck as they usually end up being like Viagra ads since they pay the most. You can still have targetted ads without tracking user data. Show ads for gaming content on eurogamer/ign, or ads for technology on techcrunch, or ads for Viagra on WebMD

ipsum2 8y ago

> EU can't wait to give fat fines to companies like Facebook and Google, due to their tax evasion schemes. How does GDPR relate to "tax evasion" at all? Also, Google and FB set up to pay taxes in Ireland, which is a member of the E.U. That seems legal to me. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

adventured 8y ago
The 4% of worldwide revenue aspect is almost exclusively pointed at the giant US tech companies. Europe has few meaningfully large tech companies, with large global sales, such that taxing worldwide revenue matters (this is why they didn't just make it an EU revenue tax). It's meant to try to plunder some of the global revenue that Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Netflix, Apple, Amazon, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. are generating. They're betting that these companies will slip up at some point (who the hell taxes revenue, instead of profit, other than the backwards Russian state anyway?). Amazon is going to $400 billion in sales (and is about to have a giant, lucrative ad business). Google is going to $200 billion in sales. Facebook is going to $100 billion in sales. Netflix will have 250 million subscribers. Apple is pushing toward $250 billion in sales. GDPR itself wasn't designed just to tax the US giants. The 4% tax on worldwide revenue however does exist solely to try to get loot from the US tech dominance. As the EU gets left further and further behind the US tech colossus, their rage and envy will increase by the year. The Germans like to snark at the Americans about how they should build better cars. Well, Europe should learn to build better tech, and learn to pay their engineers what they're actually worth if they want to compete with the US that pays 3x or 5x more.
- the_watcher 8y ago
  There's no 4% tax on revenue in the GDPR as far as I can tell. It's a 4% fine for violations. Which is potentially far greater than a 4% tax, since it applies to every violation.
  - DuskStar 8y ago
    If fines are impossible to avoid without going out of business or leaving the market, they're taxes by another name.