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Context from the Norwegian article: Meta promised to ask users whether they want to opt-in, but they never did, so now they are banning these behaviours until

Context from the Norwegian article: Meta promised to ask users whether they want to opt-in, but they never did, so now they are banning these behaviours until they have come up with a better way of handling this. Furthermore, Meta wanted those who opt-out of data sharing to have to pay money, which is most likely not legal.

xp84 3y ago
> Meta wanted those who opt-out of data sharing to have to pay money, which is most likely not legal. I really don't get this attitude. I 100% endorse everyone's right to uninstall every Meta app and never use them, and to block their on-page trackers on third-party websites with an adblocker, all that. But the notion that there should be some sort of EU-protected "Right To Use Facebook For Free"... nah. Using the apps inherently shares data with the company whose servers you're using. Don't like it, that's fine, there's only one correct recourse: Don't use it. Also, if Facebook's users were all paying for it (and all its competitors), there would be no advertising on it, and incentives in social media would be aligned much better. The government which requires companies to provide their service "for free" would be actively working against that better world by pushing the ad-supported model, which they clearly hate, as the only one.
- stubish 3y ago
  What you are asking for is the ability to sell your right to privacy. Laws generally don't allow you to sell or otherwise relinquish your rights, eg. selling your vote or selling yourself into slavery or accepting licenses in conflict with rights granted by local consumer laws. Some things we don't want assigned a value that can be traded. The EU has decided that the right to privacy includes not being tracked on the Internet, and any 'you can only use this if you give up your right or pay money' is not going to be allowed, because it ends up destroying that right for many.
  - pests 3y ago
    But as you say, they aren't asking you to give up your rights (because of the 'or pay money' clause). You can just stop using it. If you want to use it and not give up rights, pay money. What is wrong with that?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - tagyro 3y ago
      I don't agree - you can't just stop using it. Given the size of facebook (or google, amazon, microsoft, apple etc), they are ingrained in our (tech) life in such a way that one has to invest a - not negligible - amount of work to stop using them. To sum it up: companies want to have "power", but without having "responsibility".
      - graphe 3y ago
        You CAN stop using them. Do you WANT to? Are you unable to? Social media addiction isn't a right, and just because you have a share to Facebook or Twitter integration doesn't mean you have to use either.
      - OhNoNotAgain_99 3y ago
        [dead]
      - dadadatamen 3y ago
        You can. It's almost quite literally an effort of 30 - 60 min per day or week or month, depending on how skilled you are at keeping things convenient, meaning self-hosting services and maintaining them.
        theonlybutlet 3y ago
        And say getting a job, when everything is through LinkedIn?
        3y ago
  - ralusek 3y ago
    That’s like saying that using a site with moderation rules is asking you to sell your right to free speech, or that going to a nude spa is asking you to sell your right to privacy. I have no problem with EU regulating what Facebook can do, in the same way I accept that some places might regulate against nude spas, I just take issue with the way you framed it.
    - anilakar 3y ago
      Please dont bring free speech into this. As everyone very well knows, it trumps everything else including basic human rights in a certain country.
      - DangitBobby 3y ago
        It is a basic human right.
    - stubish 3y ago
      Going to a nude spa necessitates giving up some right to privacy. You expect the minimum necessary to provide the service you want. But you certainly don't want them filming you and posting the pics on the Internet. This is similar to how the GDPR is fine with storing personal information required to provide the service to the customer, but not storing unnecessary information or using it for other purposes. Going to a nudist bar would be a choice that necessitates giving up some right to privacy, but giving free drinks to women would be coercion and probably illegal in many courts. Free speech is always in conflict with other rights. You don't get to say whatever you want on a forum someone provided and deemed to be child friendly for example. Or rant about atheism and corruption of the clergy on a bible studies forum. Or commit fraud. This sort of problem is why free speech is not considered a right in many countries and instead a luxury. You get to say what you like but have to suffer the consequences. But your right to free speech stops at my right to not hear you. And your right to pay your employees what you want stops at their right to fair pay. The conflicts and the grey areas need mediation and government regulation.
      - ralusek 3y ago
  - bluelu 3y ago
    It's a double standart again. Newspapers lobbied the EU that it s allowed for them (not sure if it was changed at the end). But if you go to a large european newspaper site (eg spiegel.de) then it explicitely asks you tha you pay to access it or you must agree to behavioral advertising. But facebook should not be allowed to do this.
    - klabb3 3y ago
      Yes and this should be pointed out. However, it’s imo far from a simple selfish lobbying move. If behavioral advertising and tracking is not allowed by anyone, it will even the playing field as ads return to being context-centric, as it should. It’s too early to say if news papers will try to weasel out an exception for themselves in such a world, imo. More generally, you can want a change for everyone even if you are not currently doing what you’re preaching. You can play a game according to the rules and want to change the rules at the same time. While I agree this is a lower level of belief you can still want it, and argue for it, in good faith. Deviating from laws and even industry norms can be disproportionately costly, relative to your competitors, especially if you’re already struggling, which is true for most of legacy media. Also, journalists are typically not the owners of media companies, and they sometimes cover issues with conflicts of interest with their owners. That’s a healthy thing.
      - bluelu 3y ago
        Newspapers weaseled already an exeption out 2 years ago, see https://www.heise.de/news/E-Privacy-Verordnung-EU-Rat-fuer-Vorratsdatenspeicherung-und-Cookie-Walls-5051963.html https://www.heise.de/news/E-Privacy-Verordnung-EU-Rat-fuer-V...
    - einarfd 3y ago
      I've never seen anything like that in any Norwegian newspaper, and I would expect some of them to try if they thought they could get away with it. But I don't think they would at least not if the retoric coming out of Datatilsynet is anything to go by. How German newspaper get away with that I have no idea. But you can't expect the Norwegian government to handle German language newspapers. If spiegel.de had a Norwegian presence though. Then it would be reasonable for Norway to have a look at it.
- butlerm 3y ago
  I would love to believe that advertising would go away if only we all paid subscription fees. Cable television tells a different story.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    Then again, Netflix and YouTube Premium contradict that (for now).
    - manuelmoreale 3y ago
      Both are either introducing or toying with the idea of introducing ads. Because paid + ads still makes them more money than just a regular subscription. And since the goal is to make always more money the future is gonna be paid subs + ads.
      - skydhash 3y ago
        I don’t really think this is gonna fly. It’s quite jarring having ads before or during a movie (even at cinemas, but at least it’s once in a while). With cable you could switch channels, but streaming is a more personal experience. Especially when you’re supposed to have control over the programming.
    - WaxProlix 3y ago
      Cable also contradicted that for a time.
- neontomo 3y ago
  Well, they are already pushing ads on people and make money through that business model. Forcing the ads to be targeted creates another revenue stream for Meta but does not add anything to your argument that we should be willing to give this away in exchange for free use. We are already paying for it, with time and attention and them manipulating our emotions. I don't mind this business model as much as some, but I think you're arguing the wrong thing here.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- lopis 3y ago
  I often see this argument that if we'd all pay for services like Facebook, they wouldn't have to charge. Let me offer a counterpoint: if there is money on the table, corporations will get it. Example, you pay for cable, and still get ads. You pay for Netflix and still get Netflix ads in the app. All paid aps harvest and sell your behaviour data. Greed does not permit that money be left on the table.
  - hackideiomat 3y ago
    There are companies that try to align their incentives with the customers incentives by using a certain business model. I pay $25 for a search engine, that costs way less than operating netflix. I would be very shocked if they actually abuse the data they shouldn't collect on me. My point being, this only applies to very big coorps. There are companies that (at least claim to) care about privacy and do not sell off their users.
    - lopis 3y ago
      Well of course. If they sell you a specific product and then don't deliver, then there wasn't money on the table, that's just lying.
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  > Also, if Facebook's users were all paying for it (and all its competitors), there would be no advertising on it, Ah yes, much like how cable TV has no ads on it, right? Or newspapers. Or how Microsoft Windows has no ads on it because you paid for the OS? Or like how smart TVs aren't spying on you because you bought them… If there's money to be made by spying and putting ads, it will be done, no matter if you pay for it or not. And that's the reason why it is probably illegal: if you accept the cookies, they track you, if you refuse cookies and pay, you have to agree to their terms and conditions which allow them to track you as well. Head they win, tail you lose.
  - ako 3y ago
    With cable you’re paying the cable company, not the content provides. For that you’d have to pay the stations as well. Similar to Netflix, pay for your network, and pay the content provider.
    - littlestymaar 3y ago
      That's exactly the kind of BS Facebook would say to defend their ads for paying customers as well: “you're paying for the portal, not for the feed, the ads pay for the feed” or something like that. In fact, I'm pretty sure Google will eventually do this for premium after some time: “you're paying the platform, ads are paying the content creators ”.
    - Terretta 3y ago
      > With cable you’re paying the cable company, not the content providers. Cable and satellite such as Comcast, Time Warner Cable or DirecTV pay networks like ESPN and TNT a certain amount PER CUSTOMER for programming content each month. The median price paid for each channel a subscriber gets is 14 cents. Sports content costs the cable company the most, ESPN was estimated to cost $8.37 per month in 2018, but arguably actually should cost much more if you consider time each channel is watched versus its cost: https://www.thewrap.com/cable-network-carriage-fees/ https://www.thewrap.com/cable-network-carriage-fees/ https://variety.com/vip/pay-tv-true-cost-free-1234810682/ https://variety.com/vip/pay-tv-true-cost-free-1234810682/
- Youden 3y ago
  Facebook is only banned from behavioural advertising; regular advertising is still perfectly fine. They're not being banned from making money at all, they're only being banned from using personal data to make more money.
  - dadadatamen 3y ago
    Nobody will blow the whistle on whether that's true or not. It's a fact that we can't trust companies like Meta. Not because it's engineers who implement dark patterns or because all the people in a business earn more money if they disregard human or environmental wellbeing but because leadership literally lies to congress, judges, the public, their users and their customers all the freaking time.
    - A_non_e-moose 3y ago
      > leadership literally lies to congress, judges, the public, their users and their customers all the freaking time. The judiciary system takes lies into account. Doing that while testifying under oath might end poorly. See SBF's trial for reference.
      - dadadatamen 3y ago
        And that's great! Similar schemes are still rollin', though, and there are people right here on HN, who could blow the whistle on a great many things that are unethical and corrupt.
- jdietrich 3y ago
  The GDPR says that consent must be freely given and freely revocable, otherwise it isn't real consent. It would be obviously unfair if, for example, your employer could say "agree to install our spyware on your personal devices or you're fired", or for your landlord to say "agree to let me put surveillance cameras in your apartment or you're evicted". That isn't consent, it's coercion. A right that you can be coerced to relinquish isn't a right. Facebook have a right to charge a subscription fee. They have a right to ask you to provide your personal data. They don't have the right to charge their users a privacy tax.
- zelphirkalt 3y ago
  Where can I opt-out of being tracked by them without ever having a facebook/meta account?
- alkonaut 3y ago
  > Using the apps inherently shares data with the company whose servers you're using. That's not a problem. The problem is that these companies share it with others. That's what requires consent and Meta isn't asking for it and does it anyway. Facebook can show as many ads it wants. It can even show as many ads as it wants without asking for user consent.
- hulitu 3y ago
  > Using the apps inherently shares data with the company whose servers you're using. Don't like it, that's fine, there's only one correct recourse: Don't use it. You are missing the part where the user does not know that his data (everything he does) is collected and sold on the open market. Just read a privacy policy. Nowhere is written: we will record everything that you send and your behaviour and sell it. They say they might collect some usage data and what you post and might share it to "third parties". I would _love_ if i have to pay for this crap. But hey, i already paid for Android and Google is taking my data without any shame, so i'm skeptical that this will bring an improvement.

xp84 3y ago

> Meta wanted those who opt-out of data sharing to have to pay money, which is most likely not legal. I really don't get this attitude. I 100% endorse everyone's right to uninstall every Meta app and never use them, and to block their on-page trackers on third-party websites with an adblocker, all that. But the notion that there should be some sort of EU-protected "Right To Use Facebook For Free"... nah. Using the apps inherently shares data with the company whose servers you're using. Don't like it, that's fine, there's only one correct recourse: Don't use it. Also, if Facebook's users were all paying for it (and all its competitors), there would be no advertising on it, and incentives in social media would be aligned much better. The government which requires companies to provide their service "for free" would be actively working against that better world by pushing the ad-supported model, which they clearly hate, as the only one.

stubish 3y ago
What you are asking for is the ability to sell your right to privacy. Laws generally don't allow you to sell or otherwise relinquish your rights, eg. selling your vote or selling yourself into slavery or accepting licenses in conflict with rights granted by local consumer laws. Some things we don't want assigned a value that can be traded. The EU has decided that the right to privacy includes not being tracked on the Internet, and any 'you can only use this if you give up your right or pay money' is not going to be allowed, because it ends up destroying that right for many.
- pests 3y ago
  But as you say, they aren't asking you to give up your rights (because of the 'or pay money' clause). You can just stop using it. If you want to use it and not give up rights, pay money. What is wrong with that?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - tagyro 3y ago
    I don't agree - you can't just stop using it. Given the size of facebook (or google, amazon, microsoft, apple etc), they are ingrained in our (tech) life in such a way that one has to invest a - not negligible - amount of work to stop using them. To sum it up: companies want to have "power", but without having "responsibility".
    - graphe 3y ago
      You CAN stop using them. Do you WANT to? Are you unable to? Social media addiction isn't a right, and just because you have a share to Facebook or Twitter integration doesn't mean you have to use either.
    - OhNoNotAgain_99 3y ago
      [dead]
    - dadadatamen 3y ago
      You can. It's almost quite literally an effort of 30 - 60 min per day or week or month, depending on how skilled you are at keeping things convenient, meaning self-hosting services and maintaining them.
      - theonlybutlet 3y ago
        And say getting a job, when everything is through LinkedIn?
        3y ago
- ralusek 3y ago
  That’s like saying that using a site with moderation rules is asking you to sell your right to free speech, or that going to a nude spa is asking you to sell your right to privacy. I have no problem with EU regulating what Facebook can do, in the same way I accept that some places might regulate against nude spas, I just take issue with the way you framed it.
  - anilakar 3y ago
    Please dont bring free speech into this. As everyone very well knows, it trumps everything else including basic human rights in a certain country.
    - DangitBobby 3y ago
      It is a basic human right.
  - stubish 3y ago
    Going to a nude spa necessitates giving up some right to privacy. You expect the minimum necessary to provide the service you want. But you certainly don't want them filming you and posting the pics on the Internet. This is similar to how the GDPR is fine with storing personal information required to provide the service to the customer, but not storing unnecessary information or using it for other purposes. Going to a nudist bar would be a choice that necessitates giving up some right to privacy, but giving free drinks to women would be coercion and probably illegal in many courts. Free speech is always in conflict with other rights. You don't get to say whatever you want on a forum someone provided and deemed to be child friendly for example. Or rant about atheism and corruption of the clergy on a bible studies forum. Or commit fraud. This sort of problem is why free speech is not considered a right in many countries and instead a luxury. You get to say what you like but have to suffer the consequences. But your right to free speech stops at my right to not hear you. And your right to pay your employees what you want stops at their right to fair pay. The conflicts and the grey areas need mediation and government regulation.
    - ralusek 3y ago
- bluelu 3y ago
  It's a double standart again. Newspapers lobbied the EU that it s allowed for them (not sure if it was changed at the end). But if you go to a large european newspaper site (eg spiegel.de) then it explicitely asks you tha you pay to access it or you must agree to behavioral advertising. But facebook should not be allowed to do this.
  - klabb3 3y ago
    Yes and this should be pointed out. However, it’s imo far from a simple selfish lobbying move. If behavioral advertising and tracking is not allowed by anyone, it will even the playing field as ads return to being context-centric, as it should. It’s too early to say if news papers will try to weasel out an exception for themselves in such a world, imo. More generally, you can want a change for everyone even if you are not currently doing what you’re preaching. You can play a game according to the rules and want to change the rules at the same time. While I agree this is a lower level of belief you can still want it, and argue for it, in good faith. Deviating from laws and even industry norms can be disproportionately costly, relative to your competitors, especially if you’re already struggling, which is true for most of legacy media. Also, journalists are typically not the owners of media companies, and they sometimes cover issues with conflicts of interest with their owners. That’s a healthy thing.
    - bluelu 3y ago
      Newspapers weaseled already an exeption out 2 years ago, see https://www.heise.de/news/E-Privacy-Verordnung-EU-Rat-fuer-Vorratsdatenspeicherung-und-Cookie-Walls-5051963.html https://www.heise.de/news/E-Privacy-Verordnung-EU-Rat-fuer-V...
  - einarfd 3y ago
    I've never seen anything like that in any Norwegian newspaper, and I would expect some of them to try if they thought they could get away with it. But I don't think they would at least not if the retoric coming out of Datatilsynet is anything to go by. How German newspaper get away with that I have no idea. But you can't expect the Norwegian government to handle German language newspapers. If spiegel.de had a Norwegian presence though. Then it would be reasonable for Norway to have a look at it.
butlerm 3y ago
I would love to believe that advertising would go away if only we all paid subscription fees. Cable television tells a different story.
- fragmede 3y ago
  Then again, Netflix and YouTube Premium contradict that (for now).
  - manuelmoreale 3y ago
    Both are either introducing or toying with the idea of introducing ads. Because paid + ads still makes them more money than just a regular subscription. And since the goal is to make always more money the future is gonna be paid subs + ads.
    - skydhash 3y ago
      I don’t really think this is gonna fly. It’s quite jarring having ads before or during a movie (even at cinemas, but at least it’s once in a while). With cable you could switch channels, but streaming is a more personal experience. Especially when you’re supposed to have control over the programming.
  - WaxProlix 3y ago
    Cable also contradicted that for a time.
neontomo 3y ago
Well, they are already pushing ads on people and make money through that business model. Forcing the ads to be targeted creates another revenue stream for Meta but does not add anything to your argument that we should be willing to give this away in exchange for free use. We are already paying for it, with time and attention and them manipulating our emotions. I don't mind this business model as much as some, but I think you're arguing the wrong thing here.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
lopis 3y ago
I often see this argument that if we'd all pay for services like Facebook, they wouldn't have to charge. Let me offer a counterpoint: if there is money on the table, corporations will get it. Example, you pay for cable, and still get ads. You pay for Netflix and still get Netflix ads in the app. All paid aps harvest and sell your behaviour data. Greed does not permit that money be left on the table.
- hackideiomat 3y ago
  There are companies that try to align their incentives with the customers incentives by using a certain business model. I pay $25 for a search engine, that costs way less than operating netflix. I would be very shocked if they actually abuse the data they shouldn't collect on me. My point being, this only applies to very big coorps. There are companies that (at least claim to) care about privacy and do not sell off their users.
  - lopis 3y ago
    Well of course. If they sell you a specific product and then don't deliver, then there wasn't money on the table, that's just lying.
littlestymaar 3y ago
> Also, if Facebook's users were all paying for it (and all its competitors), there would be no advertising on it, Ah yes, much like how cable TV has no ads on it, right? Or newspapers. Or how Microsoft Windows has no ads on it because you paid for the OS? Or like how smart TVs aren't spying on you because you bought them… If there's money to be made by spying and putting ads, it will be done, no matter if you pay for it or not. And that's the reason why it is probably illegal: if you accept the cookies, they track you, if you refuse cookies and pay, you have to agree to their terms and conditions which allow them to track you as well. Head they win, tail you lose.
- ako 3y ago
  With cable you’re paying the cable company, not the content provides. For that you’d have to pay the stations as well. Similar to Netflix, pay for your network, and pay the content provider.
  - littlestymaar 3y ago
    That's exactly the kind of BS Facebook would say to defend their ads for paying customers as well: “you're paying for the portal, not for the feed, the ads pay for the feed” or something like that. In fact, I'm pretty sure Google will eventually do this for premium after some time: “you're paying the platform, ads are paying the content creators ”.
  - Terretta 3y ago
    > With cable you’re paying the cable company, not the content providers. Cable and satellite such as Comcast, Time Warner Cable or DirecTV pay networks like ESPN and TNT a certain amount PER CUSTOMER for programming content each month. The median price paid for each channel a subscriber gets is 14 cents. Sports content costs the cable company the most, ESPN was estimated to cost $8.37 per month in 2018, but arguably actually should cost much more if you consider time each channel is watched versus its cost: https://www.thewrap.com/cable-network-carriage-fees/ https://www.thewrap.com/cable-network-carriage-fees/ https://variety.com/vip/pay-tv-true-cost-free-1234810682/ https://variety.com/vip/pay-tv-true-cost-free-1234810682/
Youden 3y ago
Facebook is only banned from behavioural advertising; regular advertising is still perfectly fine. They're not being banned from making money at all, they're only being banned from using personal data to make more money.
- dadadatamen 3y ago
  Nobody will blow the whistle on whether that's true or not. It's a fact that we can't trust companies like Meta. Not because it's engineers who implement dark patterns or because all the people in a business earn more money if they disregard human or environmental wellbeing but because leadership literally lies to congress, judges, the public, their users and their customers all the freaking time.
  - A_non_e-moose 3y ago
    > leadership literally lies to congress, judges, the public, their users and their customers all the freaking time. The judiciary system takes lies into account. Doing that while testifying under oath might end poorly. See SBF's trial for reference.
    - dadadatamen 3y ago
      And that's great! Similar schemes are still rollin', though, and there are people right here on HN, who could blow the whistle on a great many things that are unethical and corrupt.
jdietrich 3y ago
The GDPR says that consent must be freely given and freely revocable, otherwise it isn't real consent. It would be obviously unfair if, for example, your employer could say "agree to install our spyware on your personal devices or you're fired", or for your landlord to say "agree to let me put surveillance cameras in your apartment or you're evicted". That isn't consent, it's coercion. A right that you can be coerced to relinquish isn't a right. Facebook have a right to charge a subscription fee. They have a right to ask you to provide your personal data. They don't have the right to charge their users a privacy tax.
zelphirkalt 3y ago
Where can I opt-out of being tracked by them without ever having a facebook/meta account?
alkonaut 3y ago
> Using the apps inherently shares data with the company whose servers you're using. That's not a problem. The problem is that these companies share it with others. That's what requires consent and Meta isn't asking for it and does it anyway. Facebook can show as many ads it wants. It can even show as many ads as it wants without asking for user consent.
hulitu 3y ago
> Using the apps inherently shares data with the company whose servers you're using. Don't like it, that's fine, there's only one correct recourse: Don't use it. You are missing the part where the user does not know that his data (everything he does) is collected and sold on the open market. Just read a privacy policy. Nowhere is written: we will record everything that you send and your behaviour and sell it. They say they might collect some usage data and what you post and might share it to "third parties". I would _love_ if i have to pay for this crap. But hey, i already paid for Android and Google is taking my data without any shame, so i'm skeptical that this will bring an improvement.