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To me this is the most egregious opinion that came out of GDPR (I've seen in argued in other GDPR threads). That a company is required to provide a service even

To me this is the most egregious opinion that came out of GDPR (I've seen in argued in other GDPR threads). That a company is required to provide a service even at a loss. A company should have every right to deny service. Untargeted advertising pays 90+% less than targeted advertising. If they lose money by serving a user content because they denied targeted advertising, they should be able to deny them service or have them pay up. They're just legislating into law the Meta (and others) have to provide a service at a loss for a growing number of users.

abyssin 2y ago
They have the right to stop operating in the legal zone where it isn't profitable for them.
xamolxix 2y ago
Meta is free to close shop (in the EU) if it's not worth it to them. Not all business have the right to exist.
- ToucanLoucan 2y ago
  Even further: No business has the right to exist. If your business can't make money because you have to respect the rights and freedoms of your customers, then close your shop up. If your business can't make money because you have to pay your workers enough to live, then close up shop. If your business can't make money because you have to abide the laws of the countries in which you operate, then close up shop. This bizarre entitlement that entrepreneurs have, especially but far from exclusively in the tech space, that just because they want their business to exist and make money that they therefore have this strange innate right to transact and draw profit, even when providing subpar service, paying subpar wages, cutting corners in the work they do, etc. etc. has been entertained for far too long. The way I was always taught it, markets select for firms that provide service well, at competitive cost, and business is a RISK because of those things. Sometimes risks don't pay off.
  - chaostheory 2y ago
    It’s ironic that you’re talking about entitlement when the EU is more or less telling meta to provide its services for free. Given that many EU countries are part of the 14 eyes alliance, these laws seem more like hypocritical protectionist legislation. They don’t care about the privacy of EU citizens. They only care about the survival of ancient EU companies. Ie why aren’t EU publishers subject to the same terms? Why can they offer targeted ads in lieu of payment? EU protectionism is also one of the reasons why the US is growing tired of continuing to subsidize the EU’s defense.
    - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
      Meta (at the time Facebook) decided to provide it's services for free at the time of inception of the product. The EU did not force their hand and they're free to stop providing services to EU users at a time of their choosing. I find it rather amusing how the notion that a business that can't make money in a given region is so wholly incompatible with your thought processes that you just jump immediately to "the EU is trying to get them to operate for free!" Like just... what if Facebook just wasn't in Europe? Like... that would be fine. The planet would continue spinning, Facebook would still make shit tons of money. It's honestly kind of wild how committed you are to this one shitty product remaining available in this one region.
      - chaostheory 2y ago
        Yes, it’s this kind of thinking that makes it clear that the EU and the US are no longer allies. It goes both ways. Also if it was such shitty product, why are law makers forced legislate it to death? One would assume that EU users would simply stop using it.
    - prmoustache 2y ago
      > It’s ironic that you’re talking about entitlement when the EU is more or less telling meta to provide its services for free. No. Facebook can paywall their services. What they condition the use of their services while respecting user's privacy to payments. It is like EU fighting against a criminal organization that offer "protection services" if you don't want them to burn your shop.
user_7832 2y ago
> A company should have every right to deny service. Pretty sure that's legal and Meta could do it if they wanted to.
- dspillett 2y ago
  > > A company should have every right to deny service. > Pretty sure that's legal and Meta could do it if they wanted to. It isn't entirely that blank & white. They can't deny service for refusing to let them do something you have a legal right to refuse to let them do. They can refuse service for refusing to pay, but the relevant laws don't allow giving up your privacy rights to be equated to paying. The law doesn't allow you to “pay” for things with your human rights (of which it considers privacy one). This leads to “pay or no service” being okie dokie, but “pay or give up right or no service” (or just “give up right or no service”) not being. This partly comes from a desire not to create a new underclass, with some able to pay to maintain their rights and the others effectively losing them because they can't afford other options. There would be a two class system anyway (those that can pay and those that don't have the service), but not having access to facebook is not seen as threatening like not having one of your human rights (as defined by relevant law) is.
  - em-bee 2y ago
    a desire not to create a new underclass, with some able to pay to maintain their rights and the others effectively losing them because they can't afford other options this is the key argument why pay for privacy is a problem. unfortunately, given that for now we must assume that all ads are tracking people and are thus violating users privacy, this means that any ad supported service that offers ad free service against pay including youtube and netfix are in violation of this. solving this will be difficult. we need some way to ensure that ads are non-tracking. but i don't know how to do that.
    - dspillett 2y ago
      > this means that any ad supported service that offers ad free service against pay including youtube and netfix are in violation of this. Actually not. Those ad free services are still tracking you. There is no payment for privacy, just payment for no adverts. The data they record while you are using the paid ad-free service can still be used elsewhere, including by that service if you later stop paying to remove the ads. This is bad from a privacy PoV, but at least it is equally bad for all from a rights PoV (rather than creating classes of haves & have nots). There are points where ads and privacy are completely separate issues. If they were separate issues generally than I'd allow many more ads but block the stalky ads/services. Not all online ads are stalky (though the vast majority are), and many ad-free sites/apps/services are still stalky (directly, or via free services that they use such as many SaaS analytics options).
zoobab 2y ago
"That a company is required to provide a service even at a loss." That's the conclusion some privacy folks came to after the GDPR came to life. Those predictions from 10y ago are not materializing.
basisword 2y ago
That’s not the case at all. If they can’t serve EU users profitably without violating their privacy they have every right to pull out of the market. If you can’t run your business without violating the rights of the citizens then you can’t do business.
- ApolloFortyNine 2y ago
  > If they can’t serve EU users profitably without violating their privacy they have every right to pull out of the market. The article clearly mentions how they are only 'violating the rights' if the user chooses to agree with it rather than paying a subscription. It's a trade. Why do you think people are entitled to consume free content with no strings attached?
  - webloem 2y ago
    The EU does not allow you to trade away your privacy rights in exchange for free goods or services.
    - curiousllama 2y ago
      It 100% does allow exactly that https://www.spiegel.de/ https://www.spiegel.de/
      - ApolloFortyNine 2y ago
        Yea that user is just wrong, is though this opinion from the privacy board (who knows if it matters at all) is that pay or consent should be illegal.
        x0x0 2y ago
        It is not. It is limited to the context of Large Online Platforms, as defined (iirc) in the DSA. I believe the edpb will later publish guidelines on consent or pay for other companies, which will impact many news agencies.
deleted 2y ago
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freetanga 2y ago
I would argue it’s the opposite: if your business model is unsustainable while observing the law, then you don’t have a business. Close and pull out.
SigmundurM 2y ago
Consent to having your privacy violated has to be actual genuine consent. Charging a privacy fee up to €250 a year I don't think can be reasonably interpreted as genuine consent.
- ApolloFortyNine 2y ago
  Then what is a reasonable price? They could define it. Though it does sound like in the article the opinion from the board that any price is too much. I also have no idea how they came up with that number, since earlier in the article they mention 9.99 and 12.99 a month.
  - dspillett 2y ago
    > Then what is a reasonable price? They could define it. Not without creating a situation where only those with at least a certain amount of money can keep their rights. > I also have no idea how they came up with that number [€250] Same. If their user numbers and published finances are to be believed then they make (IIRC) ~$25 per average EU user per year (closer to $75 for a US user) so €250 is a massive uplift. Unless of course they are lying about their active user numbers, or at least being incredibly disingenuous about how they calculate those numbers, which many believe is the case, in which case the amount made per active user is higher. Even the €9.99/mo seems far too high if they aren't being deceitful about their active user numbers, which suggests deliberately trying to discourage take-up because being able to stalk for their advertisers is more convenient and likely more profitable (or that they are being deceitful about their active user numbers!).
deleted 2y ago
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deleted 2y ago
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39896880 2y ago
The key here is that Meta is not just “A company.” Meta is effectively the communication infrastructure of a vast swathe of EU citizens. The EU has decided they have strong opinions about the administration of this infrastructure.
- BlueTemplar 2y ago
  Since this came up, it would be nice if they also had strong opinions (and followup actions) about a related infrastructure : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26843068 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26843068
x0x0 2y ago
I think this only bans consent or pay. Nothing in the edpb opinion prevents just charging (we can call it pay or pay).
nottorp 2y ago
> A company should have every right to deny service. Sure. They can pull out of the EU if they can't follow the rules. > If they lose money by serving a user content Btw, don't the users who generate said content have a right to be paid for it? Social networking doesn't generate shit, it's their users that do the work for them. > Untargeted advertising pays 90+% less than targeted advertising. But then they'll be able to drop the targeting infrastructure and reduce their hosting costs by at least two orders of magnitude :)
Workaccount2 2y ago
I think we are going to go back to paywalls and subscriptions for everything. Providers and users have been unable to strike a balance, with users being entitled to free content and providers being shameless about 3rd party data sharing. It's a self-reinforcing cycle, where intrusive advertising perpetuates ad-blocking and ad-blocking perpetuates more intrusive advertising. In my opinion the best solution would be something like what Brave is perusing, a seamless integrated micropayment system where site owners can charge penny fractions in order to view content. Yes, I know, I can easily think of all the downsides to this system. The core problem is that no one has figured out a good monetization method for internet content for 30 years. It's either pay with credit card or pay with personal data.
- BlueTemplar 2y ago
  Everything commercial. Good riddance I say, the Web has become too commercial. Also, patronage-style funding does work (even if the crowdsourced one somewhat fragile against deplatforming and not exempt of its own issues).
Youden 2y ago
The problem isn't that they charge at all but that they charge too much. The court ruled that a "reasonable" charge can be asked but at an ARPU of $45, it seems Meta is asking users who value their privacy for twice as much money ($120/yr) as the average user gives them in ad revenue.
- ajmurmann 2y ago
  How does the court decide what's "reasonable"? What does "reasonable" even mean? Isn't it up to consumers and the company to find the equilibrium price? Does the court have some arcane economic formulas I'm unaware of?
  - 39896880 2y ago
    > Isn't it up to consumers and the company to find the equilibrium price? Remember, Facebook’s users are not the consumers. They are the sources of surveillance capitalism’s crucial surplus: the objects of a technologically advanced and increasingly inescapable raw-material-extraction operation. Surveillance capitalism’s actual customers are the enterprises that trade in its markets for future behavior.
    - ajmurmann 2y ago
      Who is paying the $120/yr? Advertisers or consumers?
      - 39896880 2y ago
        Recall that the fee was only implemented to comply with the EU regulation and ostensibly to make up for the revenue not gained from selling behavioral information. If you want to test who Facebook’s real customers are, look at whose interests they put first.
        ajmurmann 2y ago
        Why does this matter? Users and Meta mutually agree to this. What kind of nanny state prevents grown adults from entering a contact that hands nobody else?
fnordian_slip 2y ago
This is sibling to the complaints many in the US like to voice against minimum wage (that it makes it impossible for some businesses to stay afloat). The obvious counterargument imho is, that no-one owes these people a profitable business. If you can't do business without exploiting people or destroying their privacy, you can't do business. Someone else will come along and fill that niche without the exploitation or destruction of privacy, and they deserve our custom more than these other entities. And if no-one is able to fill it, that's OK, too. Not every possible idea needs to be profitable.
waffleiron 2y ago
> That a company is required to provide a service even at a loss. They don't > A company should have every right to deny service. They do. >They're just legislating into law the Meta (and others) have to provide a service at a loss for a growing number of users. They don't. --- You can't just do something illegal just because you are offering a paid version where you don't do the illegal thing.
JohnMakin 2y ago
woo boy defining meta products as “providing a service” is a stretch. They’re absurdly thin wrappers around a platform whose only purpose is to hoover up your data and sell it.
ptx 2y ago
> Untargeted advertising pays 90+% less than targeted advertising. Perhaps if this kind of targeting is banned, the advertising budgets will be spent of untargeted advertising instead, raising the prices of non-targeted advertising? Perhaps advertisers (at least those with useful products) will find that less invasive targeting is good enough, such advertising e.g. knitting-related products next to knitting-related content?
66fm472tjy7 2y ago
> A company should have every right to deny service Plenty of utility companies are already being forced to provide service. As the EDPB opinion says, a lot of big tech is > decisive for participation in social life or access to professional networks, even more so in the presence of lock-in or network effects > Untargeted advertising pays 90+% less than targeted advertising I don't think that such a large difference is rational. "Untargeted" advertising can still be based on the content being viewed, just not on surveilling the viewer. > If they lose money by serving a user content because they denied targeted advertising, they should be able to deny them service or have them pay up. As I understand it the opinion does not categorically rule this out > Controllers should ensure that the fee is not such as to inhibit data subjects from making a genuine choice That is why NOYB also focuses[0] on the fact the the fee is disproportionate: > The current average revenue for programmatic advertising in the EU is € [1.41] per user - across all websites per month [...] visiting the top 100 websites can already cost more than € [1500] per year if you do not consent to tracking --- [0] https://noyb.eu/en/statement-edpb-pay-or-okay-opinion https://noyb.eu/en/statement-edpb-pay-or-okay-opinion, https://weis2019.econinfosec.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2019/05/WEIS_2019_paper_38.pdf https://weis2019.econinfosec.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/...
dspillett 2y ago
> That a company is required to provide a service even at a loss. No. The company is required to provide any services it provides without breaking the law, which includes privacy legislation. If they can't operate without making a loss without breaking the law, then they are not forced to make a loss, they can always just stop service. > A company should have every right to deny service. They do, but not on the basis of refusing to consent to a reduction of your privacy rights as defined and protected by the law. If they should be able to break piracy laws in order to be able to provide service, what other laws / human rights / other should they be able to break too? If a delivery company can't turn a profit without being faster by ignoring road safety laws, should we allow them to break those laws in order to keep offering their services? > Untargeted advertising pays 90+% less than targeted advertising. If stalky advertising did not exist, non-stalky advertising would attract higher prices. The difference in success rate between targetted and untargeted advertising is incredibly small (the difference is orders of magnitude smaller than that pricing differential) in real terms so those doing the advertising would not miss out much. Advertising as a whole, targetted or not, is not nearly as successful as the industry would have us believe. This is why so much effort is made to try make some adverts seem as much as possible like personal recommendations instead of paid promotions, and so much effort goes into other forms of astroturfing (fake reviews, paying to have bad ratings dropped, etc.). The advertising industry is conning its own customers to an extent as well as us, cleverly abusing statistics to make their services look as worth paying for as possible. This is not unlike parts of the spam industry: those buying access to send to mailing lists are conned into believing a higher rate of return is possible than is actually likely. The advertising/spam industry gets paid, the advertiser pays in money, we “pay” in irritation.

abyssin 2y ago

They have the right to stop operating in the legal zone where it isn't profitable for them.

xamolxix 2y ago

Meta is free to close shop (in the EU) if it's not worth it to them. Not all business have the right to exist.

ToucanLoucan 2y ago
Even further: No business has the right to exist. If your business can't make money because you have to respect the rights and freedoms of your customers, then close your shop up. If your business can't make money because you have to pay your workers enough to live, then close up shop. If your business can't make money because you have to abide the laws of the countries in which you operate, then close up shop. This bizarre entitlement that entrepreneurs have, especially but far from exclusively in the tech space, that just because they want their business to exist and make money that they therefore have this strange innate right to transact and draw profit, even when providing subpar service, paying subpar wages, cutting corners in the work they do, etc. etc. has been entertained for far too long. The way I was always taught it, markets select for firms that provide service well, at competitive cost, and business is a RISK because of those things. Sometimes risks don't pay off.
- chaostheory 2y ago
  It’s ironic that you’re talking about entitlement when the EU is more or less telling meta to provide its services for free. Given that many EU countries are part of the 14 eyes alliance, these laws seem more like hypocritical protectionist legislation. They don’t care about the privacy of EU citizens. They only care about the survival of ancient EU companies. Ie why aren’t EU publishers subject to the same terms? Why can they offer targeted ads in lieu of payment? EU protectionism is also one of the reasons why the US is growing tired of continuing to subsidize the EU’s defense.
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    Meta (at the time Facebook) decided to provide it's services for free at the time of inception of the product. The EU did not force their hand and they're free to stop providing services to EU users at a time of their choosing. I find it rather amusing how the notion that a business that can't make money in a given region is so wholly incompatible with your thought processes that you just jump immediately to "the EU is trying to get them to operate for free!" Like just... what if Facebook just wasn't in Europe? Like... that would be fine. The planet would continue spinning, Facebook would still make shit tons of money. It's honestly kind of wild how committed you are to this one shitty product remaining available in this one region.
    - chaostheory 2y ago
      Yes, it’s this kind of thinking that makes it clear that the EU and the US are no longer allies. It goes both ways. Also if it was such shitty product, why are law makers forced legislate it to death? One would assume that EU users would simply stop using it.
  - prmoustache 2y ago
    > It’s ironic that you’re talking about entitlement when the EU is more or less telling meta to provide its services for free. No. Facebook can paywall their services. What they condition the use of their services while respecting user's privacy to payments. It is like EU fighting against a criminal organization that offer "protection services" if you don't want them to burn your shop.

user_7832 2y ago

> A company should have every right to deny service. Pretty sure that's legal and Meta could do it if they wanted to.

dspillett 2y ago
> > A company should have every right to deny service. > Pretty sure that's legal and Meta could do it if they wanted to. It isn't entirely that blank & white. They can't deny service for refusing to let them do something you have a legal right to refuse to let them do. They can refuse service for refusing to pay, but the relevant laws don't allow giving up your privacy rights to be equated to paying. The law doesn't allow you to “pay” for things with your human rights (of which it considers privacy one). This leads to “pay or no service” being okie dokie, but “pay or give up right or no service” (or just “give up right or no service”) not being. This partly comes from a desire not to create a new underclass, with some able to pay to maintain their rights and the others effectively losing them because they can't afford other options. There would be a two class system anyway (those that can pay and those that don't have the service), but not having access to facebook is not seen as threatening like not having one of your human rights (as defined by relevant law) is.
- em-bee 2y ago
  a desire not to create a new underclass, with some able to pay to maintain their rights and the others effectively losing them because they can't afford other options this is the key argument why pay for privacy is a problem. unfortunately, given that for now we must assume that all ads are tracking people and are thus violating users privacy, this means that any ad supported service that offers ad free service against pay including youtube and netfix are in violation of this. solving this will be difficult. we need some way to ensure that ads are non-tracking. but i don't know how to do that.
  - dspillett 2y ago
    > this means that any ad supported service that offers ad free service against pay including youtube and netfix are in violation of this. Actually not. Those ad free services are still tracking you. There is no payment for privacy, just payment for no adverts. The data they record while you are using the paid ad-free service can still be used elsewhere, including by that service if you later stop paying to remove the ads. This is bad from a privacy PoV, but at least it is equally bad for all from a rights PoV (rather than creating classes of haves & have nots). There are points where ads and privacy are completely separate issues. If they were separate issues generally than I'd allow many more ads but block the stalky ads/services. Not all online ads are stalky (though the vast majority are), and many ad-free sites/apps/services are still stalky (directly, or via free services that they use such as many SaaS analytics options).

zoobab 2y ago

"That a company is required to provide a service even at a loss." That's the conclusion some privacy folks came to after the GDPR came to life. Those predictions from 10y ago are not materializing.

basisword 2y ago

That’s not the case at all. If they can’t serve EU users profitably without violating their privacy they have every right to pull out of the market. If you can’t run your business without violating the rights of the citizens then you can’t do business.

ApolloFortyNine 2y ago
> If they can’t serve EU users profitably without violating their privacy they have every right to pull out of the market. The article clearly mentions how they are only 'violating the rights' if the user chooses to agree with it rather than paying a subscription. It's a trade. Why do you think people are entitled to consume free content with no strings attached?
- webloem 2y ago
  The EU does not allow you to trade away your privacy rights in exchange for free goods or services.
  - curiousllama 2y ago
    It 100% does allow exactly that https://www.spiegel.de/ https://www.spiegel.de/
    - ApolloFortyNine 2y ago
      Yea that user is just wrong, is though this opinion from the privacy board (who knows if it matters at all) is that pay or consent should be illegal.
      - x0x0 2y ago
        It is not. It is limited to the context of Large Online Platforms, as defined (iirc) in the DSA. I believe the edpb will later publish guidelines on consent or pay for other companies, which will impact many news agencies.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

freetanga 2y ago

I would argue it’s the opposite: if your business model is unsustainable while observing the law, then you don’t have a business. Close and pull out.

SigmundurM 2y ago

Consent to having your privacy violated has to be actual genuine consent. Charging a privacy fee up to €250 a year I don't think can be reasonably interpreted as genuine consent.

ApolloFortyNine 2y ago
Then what is a reasonable price? They could define it. Though it does sound like in the article the opinion from the board that any price is too much. I also have no idea how they came up with that number, since earlier in the article they mention 9.99 and 12.99 a month.
- dspillett 2y ago
  > Then what is a reasonable price? They could define it. Not without creating a situation where only those with at least a certain amount of money can keep their rights. > I also have no idea how they came up with that number [€250] Same. If their user numbers and published finances are to be believed then they make (IIRC) ~$25 per average EU user per year (closer to $75 for a US user) so €250 is a massive uplift. Unless of course they are lying about their active user numbers, or at least being incredibly disingenuous about how they calculate those numbers, which many believe is the case, in which case the amount made per active user is higher. Even the €9.99/mo seems far too high if they aren't being deceitful about their active user numbers, which suggests deliberately trying to discourage take-up because being able to stalk for their advertisers is more convenient and likely more profitable (or that they are being deceitful about their active user numbers!).

deleted 2y ago

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deleted 2y ago

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39896880 2y ago

The key here is that Meta is not just “A company.” Meta is effectively the communication infrastructure of a vast swathe of EU citizens. The EU has decided they have strong opinions about the administration of this infrastructure.

BlueTemplar 2y ago
Since this came up, it would be nice if they also had strong opinions (and followup actions) about a related infrastructure : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26843068 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26843068

x0x0 2y ago

I think this only bans consent or pay. Nothing in the edpb opinion prevents just charging (we can call it pay or pay).

nottorp 2y ago

> A company should have every right to deny service. Sure. They can pull out of the EU if they can't follow the rules. > If they lose money by serving a user content Btw, don't the users who generate said content have a right to be paid for it? Social networking doesn't generate shit, it's their users that do the work for them. > Untargeted advertising pays 90+% less than targeted advertising. But then they'll be able to drop the targeting infrastructure and reduce their hosting costs by at least two orders of magnitude :)

Workaccount2 2y ago

I think we are going to go back to paywalls and subscriptions for everything. Providers and users have been unable to strike a balance, with users being entitled to free content and providers being shameless about 3rd party data sharing. It's a self-reinforcing cycle, where intrusive advertising perpetuates ad-blocking and ad-blocking perpetuates more intrusive advertising. In my opinion the best solution would be something like what Brave is perusing, a seamless integrated micropayment system where site owners can charge penny fractions in order to view content. Yes, I know, I can easily think of all the downsides to this system. The core problem is that no one has figured out a good monetization method for internet content for 30 years. It's either pay with credit card or pay with personal data.

BlueTemplar 2y ago
Everything commercial. Good riddance I say, the Web has become too commercial. Also, patronage-style funding does work (even if the crowdsourced one somewhat fragile against deplatforming and not exempt of its own issues).

Youden 2y ago

The problem isn't that they charge at all but that they charge too much. The court ruled that a "reasonable" charge can be asked but at an ARPU of $45, it seems Meta is asking users who value their privacy for twice as much money ($120/yr) as the average user gives them in ad revenue.

ajmurmann 2y ago
How does the court decide what's "reasonable"? What does "reasonable" even mean? Isn't it up to consumers and the company to find the equilibrium price? Does the court have some arcane economic formulas I'm unaware of?
- 39896880 2y ago
  > Isn't it up to consumers and the company to find the equilibrium price? Remember, Facebook’s users are not the consumers. They are the sources of surveillance capitalism’s crucial surplus: the objects of a technologically advanced and increasingly inescapable raw-material-extraction operation. Surveillance capitalism’s actual customers are the enterprises that trade in its markets for future behavior.
  - ajmurmann 2y ago
    Who is paying the $120/yr? Advertisers or consumers?
    - 39896880 2y ago
      Recall that the fee was only implemented to comply with the EU regulation and ostensibly to make up for the revenue not gained from selling behavioral information. If you want to test who Facebook’s real customers are, look at whose interests they put first.
      - ajmurmann 2y ago
        Why does this matter? Users and Meta mutually agree to this. What kind of nanny state prevents grown adults from entering a contact that hands nobody else?

fnordian_slip 2y ago

This is sibling to the complaints many in the US like to voice against minimum wage (that it makes it impossible for some businesses to stay afloat). The obvious counterargument imho is, that no-one owes these people a profitable business. If you can't do business without exploiting people or destroying their privacy, you can't do business. Someone else will come along and fill that niche without the exploitation or destruction of privacy, and they deserve our custom more than these other entities. And if no-one is able to fill it, that's OK, too. Not every possible idea needs to be profitable.

waffleiron 2y ago

> That a company is required to provide a service even at a loss. They don't > A company should have every right to deny service. They do. >They're just legislating into law the Meta (and others) have to provide a service at a loss for a growing number of users. They don't. --- You can't just do something illegal just because you are offering a paid version where you don't do the illegal thing.

JohnMakin 2y ago

woo boy defining meta products as “providing a service” is a stretch. They’re absurdly thin wrappers around a platform whose only purpose is to hoover up your data and sell it.

ptx 2y ago

> Untargeted advertising pays 90+% less than targeted advertising. Perhaps if this kind of targeting is banned, the advertising budgets will be spent of untargeted advertising instead, raising the prices of non-targeted advertising? Perhaps advertisers (at least those with useful products) will find that less invasive targeting is good enough, such advertising e.g. knitting-related products next to knitting-related content?

66fm472tjy7 2y ago

> A company should have every right to deny service Plenty of utility companies are already being forced to provide service. As the EDPB opinion says, a lot of big tech is > decisive for participation in social life or access to professional networks, even more so in the presence of lock-in or network effects > Untargeted advertising pays 90+% less than targeted advertising I don't think that such a large difference is rational. "Untargeted" advertising can still be based on the content being viewed, just not on surveilling the viewer. > If they lose money by serving a user content because they denied targeted advertising, they should be able to deny them service or have them pay up. As I understand it the opinion does not categorically rule this out > Controllers should ensure that the fee is not such as to inhibit data subjects from making a genuine choice That is why NOYB also focuses[0] on the fact the the fee is disproportionate: > The current average revenue for programmatic advertising in the EU is € [1.41] per user - across all websites per month [...] visiting the top 100 websites can already cost more than € [1500] per year if you do not consent to tracking --- [0] https://noyb.eu/en/statement-edpb-pay-or-okay-opinion https://noyb.eu/en/statement-edpb-pay-or-okay-opinion, https://weis2019.econinfosec.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2019/05/WEIS_2019_paper_38.pdf https://weis2019.econinfosec.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/...

dspillett 2y ago

> That a company is required to provide a service even at a loss. No. The company is required to provide any services it provides without breaking the law, which includes privacy legislation. If they can't operate without making a loss without breaking the law, then they are not forced to make a loss, they can always just stop service. > A company should have every right to deny service. They do, but not on the basis of refusing to consent to a reduction of your privacy rights as defined and protected by the law. If they should be able to break piracy laws in order to be able to provide service, what other laws / human rights / other should they be able to break too? If a delivery company can't turn a profit without being faster by ignoring road safety laws, should we allow them to break those laws in order to keep offering their services? > Untargeted advertising pays 90+% less than targeted advertising. If stalky advertising did not exist, non-stalky advertising would attract higher prices. The difference in success rate between targetted and untargeted advertising is incredibly small (the difference is orders of magnitude smaller than that pricing differential) in real terms so those doing the advertising would not miss out much. Advertising as a whole, targetted or not, is not nearly as successful as the industry would have us believe. This is why so much effort is made to try make some adverts seem as much as possible like personal recommendations instead of paid promotions, and so much effort goes into other forms of astroturfing (fake reviews, paying to have bad ratings dropped, etc.). The advertising industry is conning its own customers to an extent as well as us, cleverly abusing statistics to make their services look as worth paying for as possible. This is not unlike parts of the spam industry: those buying access to send to mailing lists are conned into believing a higher rate of return is possible than is actually likely. The advertising/spam industry gets paid, the advertiser pays in money, we “pay” in irritation.