5 ms·

> Meta has stated that it had already announced plans to provide users in the EU and EEA with an opportunity to provide consent and will introduce a subscripti

by leksak 3y ago

> Meta has stated that it had already announced plans to provide users in the EU and EEA with an opportunity to provide consent and will introduce a subscription model in November to comply with regulatory requirements This effectively means then that if you are in the EU and you'd want to use either Facebook or Instagram you'd have to pay for a subscription then because they presumably won't offer the free-service without personalized ads and since the law prohibits them from doing that then the only way to use either service will be to pay for it..?

startages 3y ago
Exactly, and I personally don't see anything wrong with this approach. You can't offer a free service if you can't make money from it somehow.
- contravariant 3y ago
  Though it'd be interesting to see what wins out, whether people are really willing to pay Facebook enough to replace the ad funds, or if something else wins out. To some extent easy ad revenue has given some of these companies a version of Dutch disease, if this revenue falls away for whatever reason they'll need to win out in features or efficiency. Given that I'd be happy if facebook vanished from the face of the earth and that their website is the definition of bloat I'd say they're not doing too well in that regard.
- latexr 3y ago
  They could still show ads without all the invasiveness. For example: advertisers could pay to place ads in specific Facebook groups and they would show to people visiting those pages. Like it has been done for decades in magazines and other physical media. The internet did not invent advertising.
  - geek_at 3y ago
    exactly and even if they didn't take "personalized data" into account, they can still serve you ads based on pages/profiles you liked
    - Zanni 3y ago
      That's exactly what's being banned. Pages and profiles you like (along with other personal data) is what drives "behavioral advertising."
  - adrr 3y ago
    They don't work effectively if they aren't targeted on who you are. It would be like TV ads. Biggest example is the IOS privacy which has hit whole industry in terms of marketing effectiveness and cost.
    - fsflover 3y ago
      Any reference proving this?
      - adrr 3y ago
        FB earnings or any earnings from any company that is heavily dependent on performance marketing. And for small businesses. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/small-businesses-count-cost-of-apples-privacy-changes/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/small-businesses-cou...
        fsflover 3y ago
        But did they compare their earning to those with non-tracking, contextual ads?
  - justapassenger 3y ago
    There’s a reason why magazines ads are dying and being replaced by personalized ads. Advertising like that is widely inefficient. It’s easy to show ads. Not that easy to make money from doing so. It’s as valid alternative as telling people to use horses instead of cars to reduce CO2 emissions. They both get from point A to B, right?
    - polygamous_bat 3y ago
      > There’s a reason why magazines ads are dying and being replaced by personalized ads. Advertising like that is widely inefficient. Too bad, if your business model can’t make money without breaking laws and harming people’s rights, do you really deserve to stay in business? > It’s as valid alternative as telling people to use horses instead of cars to reduce CO2 emissions. They both get from point A to B, right? More like banning formula 1 cars from suburbs. People survived before without personalized ads, what will not survive is making 10-digits of profit every quarter and the associated butchery of our life and institutions in the pursuit of profit.
      - foota 3y ago
        When you're debating the merits of the law in question, it doesn't seem like a valid defense to say "if they can't do business under the law then that's their fault". If I say "car dealers can't sell cars that go faster than 10mph and if they go out of business then they shouldn't exist", it's clearly fallacious, and I don't see how this is any different.
        kaftoy 3y ago
        It is different. Rules and laws are supposed to make sense, but the one with 10 mph is not. There are limita to 250 kph in Europe and I dont see car dealers going down. Also, for years there are emissions regulators that make life hard for auto makers, but they obey and still sell cars.
        shaftway 3y ago
  - elorant 3y ago
    Magazines have context though. You buy an art magazine, you'll see a Mercedes ad because it's likely that people who're interested in art make more than average. Facebook without tracking has no context whatsoever, aside from Groups and that's debatable.
    - thepangolino 3y ago
      [dead]
- beejiu 3y ago
  The problem is the network effect dissolves. There's no point being on Facebook if 80% of your friends leave because they don't want to pay for it.
  - bmicraft 3y ago
    Facebook doesn't have an inherent right to be profitable in Europe. If the people have decided that through their vote (even if indirectly), then it is what it is and facebook can pull out of that market.
estel 3y ago
From the Independent (and presumably elsewhere): > Meta said it has cooperated with regulators and pointed to its announced plans to give Europeans the opportunity to consent to data collection and, later this month, to offer an ad-free subscription service in Europe that will cost 9.99 euros ($10.59) a month for access to all its products > Tobias Judin, head of the international section at the Norwegian Data Protection Authority, said Meta's proposed steps likely won't meet European legal standards. For instance, he said, consent would have to be freely given, which wouldn't be the case if existing users had to choose between giving up their privacy rights or paying a financial penalty in the form of a subscription.
- timeon 3y ago
  > For instance, he said, consent would have to be freely given, which wouldn't be the case if existing users had to choose between giving up their privacy rights or paying a financial penalty in the form of a subscription. This is already present in EU. Spiegel.de and others are like that. Pay or be tracked.
  - sharemywin 3y ago
    exactly facebook(US company) illegal, EU companies legal. let's not kid ourselves on how these dog and pony shows work.
    - erinnh 3y ago
      The practice has been very controversial in the EU ever since GDPR took effect. It’s simply that nobody has been sued to the end for it yet.
    - neaumusic 3y ago
      this is similar to tiktok getting banned because the data doesnt reside in the US anymore, meanwhile the NSA has unrestricted access and data privacy doesn't apply to foreigners (we can snoop on anybody who's not a US citizen). honestly private data should be illegal, public behavioral data should be public, and censorship is always wrong
trizoza 3y ago
This is awesome. Yet another great reason to leave the service completely.
Semaphor 3y ago
Unless I’m completely misunderstanding things, they’ll do what many news sites in Germany already do: Option A: Continue for free with ads (and tracking and profiling etc.) Option B: Pay for a subscription without ads or tracking (most seem to use a service called "Pur" (pure)) This does not mesh with some people’s understanding of the GDPR, but at least several German courts said it’s okay.
- gpderetta 3y ago
  This is common in Italy as well. Do you have any (English) links to court reports?
  - Semaphor 3y ago
    No, and I can’t even find the German reports (this was a while ago, but I’m reasonably certain I didn’t make a court case up :D). But Netzpolitik [0] reports that our Data Protection Agencies essentially declared it as okay half a year ago. [0]: https://netzpolitik.org/2023/alternative-zu-tracking-datenschutzbehoerden-geben-pur-abos-ihren-segen/ https://netzpolitik.org/2023/alternative-zu-tracking-datensc...
- tzs 3y ago
  My recollection is that at least some country's regulators have said that if you offer option A you must also offer option A': continue for free without tracking and profiling. Their reasoning was that GDPR says that consent must be freely given. If the site provides more service if you consent than the consent is not freely given according to those regulators. (It seemed kind of goofy to me. In every other context I can think of consenting to something that you do not like in exchange for getting something that you want is usually considered to be freely given consent unless that something you want is something that is necessary).
  - Semaphor 3y ago
    As I posted in another comment, German regulators apparently okayed this.
  - 3y ago
outside1234 3y ago
I thought it was illegal to only offer the privacy service through paying for it?
tgsovlerkhgsel 3y ago
They will give you two choices: pay, or consent. The decision just tells them that now, over 5 years after GDPR went into force, they have to stop breaking the law by not even asking for consent and claiming "legitimate interest" or "we need this to fulfill a contract with the user". Even if they get fined the 4% of annual revenue, that'll be a tiny bit of the extra money they illegally made over those 5 years. And now they'll do the pay-or-consent (which may or may not be legal), and if it's illegal, they'll happily argue for another 1-2 years then pay the fine...
arendtio 3y ago
As far as I understand the issue, using normal ads (without personalization) would be an option too?

by leksak 3y ago

startages 3y ago

Exactly, and I personally don't see anything wrong with this approach. You can't offer a free service if you can't make money from it somehow.

contravariant 3y ago
Though it'd be interesting to see what wins out, whether people are really willing to pay Facebook enough to replace the ad funds, or if something else wins out. To some extent easy ad revenue has given some of these companies a version of Dutch disease, if this revenue falls away for whatever reason they'll need to win out in features or efficiency. Given that I'd be happy if facebook vanished from the face of the earth and that their website is the definition of bloat I'd say they're not doing too well in that regard.
latexr 3y ago
They could still show ads without all the invasiveness. For example: advertisers could pay to place ads in specific Facebook groups and they would show to people visiting those pages. Like it has been done for decades in magazines and other physical media. The internet did not invent advertising.
- geek_at 3y ago
  exactly and even if they didn't take "personalized data" into account, they can still serve you ads based on pages/profiles you liked
  - Zanni 3y ago
    That's exactly what's being banned. Pages and profiles you like (along with other personal data) is what drives "behavioral advertising."
- adrr 3y ago
  They don't work effectively if they aren't targeted on who you are. It would be like TV ads. Biggest example is the IOS privacy which has hit whole industry in terms of marketing effectiveness and cost.
  - fsflover 3y ago
    Any reference proving this?
    - adrr 3y ago
      FB earnings or any earnings from any company that is heavily dependent on performance marketing. And for small businesses. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/small-businesses-count-cost-of-apples-privacy-changes/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/small-businesses-cou...
      - fsflover 3y ago
        But did they compare their earning to those with non-tracking, contextual ads?
- justapassenger 3y ago
  There’s a reason why magazines ads are dying and being replaced by personalized ads. Advertising like that is widely inefficient. It’s easy to show ads. Not that easy to make money from doing so. It’s as valid alternative as telling people to use horses instead of cars to reduce CO2 emissions. They both get from point A to B, right?
  - polygamous_bat 3y ago
    > There’s a reason why magazines ads are dying and being replaced by personalized ads. Advertising like that is widely inefficient. Too bad, if your business model can’t make money without breaking laws and harming people’s rights, do you really deserve to stay in business? > It’s as valid alternative as telling people to use horses instead of cars to reduce CO2 emissions. They both get from point A to B, right? More like banning formula 1 cars from suburbs. People survived before without personalized ads, what will not survive is making 10-digits of profit every quarter and the associated butchery of our life and institutions in the pursuit of profit.
    - foota 3y ago
      When you're debating the merits of the law in question, it doesn't seem like a valid defense to say "if they can't do business under the law then that's their fault". If I say "car dealers can't sell cars that go faster than 10mph and if they go out of business then they shouldn't exist", it's clearly fallacious, and I don't see how this is any different.
      - kaftoy 3y ago
        It is different. Rules and laws are supposed to make sense, but the one with 10 mph is not. There are limita to 250 kph in Europe and I dont see car dealers going down. Also, for years there are emissions regulators that make life hard for auto makers, but they obey and still sell cars.
        shaftway 3y ago
- elorant 3y ago
  Magazines have context though. You buy an art magazine, you'll see a Mercedes ad because it's likely that people who're interested in art make more than average. Facebook without tracking has no context whatsoever, aside from Groups and that's debatable.
  - thepangolino 3y ago
    [dead]
beejiu 3y ago
The problem is the network effect dissolves. There's no point being on Facebook if 80% of your friends leave because they don't want to pay for it.
- bmicraft 3y ago
  Facebook doesn't have an inherent right to be profitable in Europe. If the people have decided that through their vote (even if indirectly), then it is what it is and facebook can pull out of that market.

estel 3y ago

From the Independent (and presumably elsewhere): > Meta said it has cooperated with regulators and pointed to its announced plans to give Europeans the opportunity to consent to data collection and, later this month, to offer an ad-free subscription service in Europe that will cost 9.99 euros ($10.59) a month for access to all its products > Tobias Judin, head of the international section at the Norwegian Data Protection Authority, said Meta's proposed steps likely won't meet European legal standards. For instance, he said, consent would have to be freely given, which wouldn't be the case if existing users had to choose between giving up their privacy rights or paying a financial penalty in the form of a subscription.

timeon 3y ago
> For instance, he said, consent would have to be freely given, which wouldn't be the case if existing users had to choose between giving up their privacy rights or paying a financial penalty in the form of a subscription. This is already present in EU. Spiegel.de and others are like that. Pay or be tracked.
- sharemywin 3y ago
  exactly facebook(US company) illegal, EU companies legal. let's not kid ourselves on how these dog and pony shows work.
  - erinnh 3y ago
    The practice has been very controversial in the EU ever since GDPR took effect. It’s simply that nobody has been sued to the end for it yet.
  - neaumusic 3y ago
    this is similar to tiktok getting banned because the data doesnt reside in the US anymore, meanwhile the NSA has unrestricted access and data privacy doesn't apply to foreigners (we can snoop on anybody who's not a US citizen). honestly private data should be illegal, public behavioral data should be public, and censorship is always wrong

trizoza 3y ago

This is awesome. Yet another great reason to leave the service completely.

Semaphor 3y ago

Unless I’m completely misunderstanding things, they’ll do what many news sites in Germany already do: Option A: Continue for free with ads (and tracking and profiling etc.) Option B: Pay for a subscription without ads or tracking (most seem to use a service called "Pur" (pure)) This does not mesh with some people’s understanding of the GDPR, but at least several German courts said it’s okay.

gpderetta 3y ago
This is common in Italy as well. Do you have any (English) links to court reports?
- Semaphor 3y ago
  No, and I can’t even find the German reports (this was a while ago, but I’m reasonably certain I didn’t make a court case up :D). But Netzpolitik [0] reports that our Data Protection Agencies essentially declared it as okay half a year ago. [0]: https://netzpolitik.org/2023/alternative-zu-tracking-datenschutzbehoerden-geben-pur-abos-ihren-segen/ https://netzpolitik.org/2023/alternative-zu-tracking-datensc...
tzs 3y ago
My recollection is that at least some country's regulators have said that if you offer option A you must also offer option A': continue for free without tracking and profiling. Their reasoning was that GDPR says that consent must be freely given. If the site provides more service if you consent than the consent is not freely given according to those regulators. (It seemed kind of goofy to me. In every other context I can think of consenting to something that you do not like in exchange for getting something that you want is usually considered to be freely given consent unless that something you want is something that is necessary).
- Semaphor 3y ago
  As I posted in another comment, German regulators apparently okayed this.
- 3y ago

outside1234 3y ago

I thought it was illegal to only offer the privacy service through paying for it?

tgsovlerkhgsel 3y ago

They will give you two choices: pay, or consent. The decision just tells them that now, over 5 years after GDPR went into force, they have to stop breaking the law by not even asking for consent and claiming "legitimate interest" or "we need this to fulfill a contract with the user". Even if they get fined the 4% of annual revenue, that'll be a tiny bit of the extra money they illegally made over those 5 years. And now they'll do the pay-or-consent (which may or may not be legal), and if it's illegal, they'll happily argue for another 1-2 years then pay the fine...

arendtio 3y ago

As far as I understand the issue, using normal ads (without personalization) would be an option too?