‘Meta is out of options’: EU regulators reject its privacy fee for Facebook and Instagram
‘Meta is out of options’: EU regulators reject its privacy fee for Facebook and Instagram
What's really unhinged is the amount of resources invested into gaslighting Meta does. https://about.fb.com/news/2024/01/investing-in-privacy/
They even have a "Chief Privacy Officer". They have brainwashed entire departments into believing that Meta actually cares about privacy, it's so terrifying. I wonder if people working there realize that, or they have simply fell for the gaslighting.
Prior to joining Meta, she was a partner working on technology issues and co-chair of Covington & Burling's global data practice. Erin collaborates with policymakers and experts on Meta's products and features and is deeply involved in legislative and regulatory efforts around data protection, data portability, advertising, and Al.
E.g. ex lawyer working for a firm that ensured companies could sell and use as much data as possible and defended them if they got sued or fined. Now in charge of “Privacy,” e.g. making sure Meta can sell and use as much private data as possible. It’s literal doublespeak
McDonalds sells salads too
I wouldn’t doubt that the CPO is trying their hardest to convince people to care but people just dont
Yeah that's often the problem. They hire people who care and are good at the stuff so they can point to them and say "we really do care as a company" and then they aren't given the leverage they need inside the company to implement real changes
Doesn't CPO means Chef of marketing and communication, does it?
Sounds to me that Meta defines privacy in a very particular way. You’re still going to give all of your data to Meta, but anything outside this transaction is in the realm of privacy where you can have rights and settings.
Please pull out of EU, it will be so much easier to convince more of my family to use signal.
They keep throwing around threats of leaving.
Do it... do it you absolute chickens.
Even if they comply, I'd rather not have to use WhatsApp
Leaving the EU could be an option.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out!
Wouldn't that be a treat!
Dreams are free and can't be tracked.
Say one decides to pay...what guarantees do I get that my data won't be used or that I won't get targeted?
Trust me bro
False advertising laws?
Good luck proving that your data came from meta sources after you paid.
This is great!
I wonder how many € I can rent an EU citizenship for ;-)
It's not about EU citizenship but if you are actually living in the EU.
My VPN says I do
You guys might have a point… I was thinking they would impose some kind of draconian verification as the next impediment to compliance.
Also kinda thinking about those weird “travel agencies” that let you rent a return flight so you can get your visa approved.
But if it really is anyone on EU soil they truly may be out of options.
Is cutting his hair an option? If he needs, I have a device that uses gravity to chop things...
Good news, that’s one point where the EU takes good decisions. Sadly, fight against privacy in terms of anti money laundering rules and similar
Max Schrems, the Austrian activist lawyer whose 13-year legal crusade against Meta is what gradually removed those options
I wonder, does anyone know how would one go about acomplishing something like this? One of major websites here in Czech, and a major search engine, has started doing exactly the same thing - pay or agree. And I really don't like that. Are there organizations you can contact, or do you have to have the resources to just sue them?
You should search for something like "data protection office" in Czech language, they likely have tips on how to lodge a complaint.
edit: should be a good website: https://uoou.gov.cz/en/consultation/contact
🇪🇺🇪🇺🇪🇺
It looks like Meta’s strategy of charging European Facebook and Instagram users, for the privilege of not being tracked for ad-targeting purposes, ain’t gonna fly.
I'm in the US and also don't care about Facebook and Instagram, but if I could pay a privacy fee to Alphabet and not be logged and data-mined, I'd do that.
I don't know if there's enough people who would for that to be a viable market, but I'd be there.
Fuck that and fuck them.
And who cares about people like me who can't afford to shell out $50 each month to not be tracked by various services, right?
The service isn't going to be provided for free -- it's a business, not a charity. One way or another, it gets paid for. You have two options:
Personally, while I don't use or care about Facebook, I'd like to have the option to pay with money rather than data for services that I do use. Some of those don't have that option today.
I'd also add that this doesn't just apply to online services. For example, we've been talking about car tracking using cell radios to send data back a bit on the Threadiverse. If someone doesn't care about their car transmitting data back, okay, fine. I've got no problem with that being an option available to them, if it can reduce the purchase price and someone is okay with that. But I'd prefer to have the option to just pay a higher purchase price and not have that happen. I don't really want to screw around with trying to game the system and disabling cell radios and trying to let other customers bear the price of my subsidized car (nor is that really fair to those customers, frankly). I just want to have the option to pay for my car the way I historically did -- I give money to the automaker up front, deal is done.
A vendor should be agnostic as to whether someone pays with data or money, as long as they are able to charge enough to cover whatever they lose via not being able to sell data and whatever overhead exists from maintaining two payment models. The only argument I can think of against it is that it requires them to expose some data as to how valuable they assess the data to be. That might be considered a trade secret, but given that the consumer really needs that data to assess whether-or-not they want the company to have that data and that price information is required to be available to the consumer for an efficient market to work, I'm okay with imposing that limitation on the vendor.
Well yeah but you guys are already used to paying data collection agencies for protection just so you can have some basic quality of privacy (like not getting sales calls or having your identity stolen).
I imagine that paying a tech giant for it is just the logical next step.
If Apple came out with a paid service that said "I'll make sure those other companies don't have your data" it would sell like hotcakes and nobody would think twice about the irony.
It's not about privacy if you're paying. Privacy can't be negotiated. This is a hard fact. It's privacy or nothing.
You are being blackmailed. This is no different than having the boys show up at your front door demanding protection money. Pay us and nobody (read: us) will break your legs. Pay us and nobody will steal your data.
if I could pay a privacy fee to Alphabet and not be logged and data-mined, I’d do that.
It's called Google Workspace and it's decently nice. You can get a basic business starter account for something like $7 per month/per user + whatever you want to pay to register a domain each year. Takes a little bit of know how and you need to do some lifting for yourself that Google would otherwise shoulder for you, but it's pretty nice and has more benefits beyond just the privacy implications, like 30GB of account storage and Google Meet conferencing for up to 100 people without time limits. On the downside, some stuff that needs to track your usage to function properly (Like YouTube video recommendations) just do not work with a Workspace account because they don't track your preferences so they don't have a way to build a recommendation profile for you.
I've been doing it for years now and I appreciate it a lot. In the rare instances when I need to go do something on my old Gmail account it's shocking every time how bad the unpaid versions of Google products have gotten.
if I could pay a privacy fee to Alphabet and not be logged and data-mined, I’d do that.
It's called Google Workspace and it's decently nice.
But you are deluding yourself if you think that your data will not be "mined" there.
Hmm. That sounds interesting.
goes to investigate
It sounds like that covers Gmail and stuff like that, but at least in this 2022 article, it doesn't sound like it covers Web searches on Google, or YouTube, or Google Maps. That sounds like it's fair game for data-mining.
Regarding the promise to not use data from "Workspace core services," Google's statement doesn't cover Google Search (it's not a core Workspace app), which is the primary vector for Google ads and data for Google ads. That's right—the "Search History" setting from Google doesn't cover Google Search history.
Google's reasoning for this change is that, because Workspace apps are paid for, "Google never uses your data in Google Workspace core services for advertising," the company said. So basically the new "Search History" setting could be called "save data that won't be used for ads."
The terms "Google Workspace products" and "additional Google services" are the key to understanding that description. Basically, Google is splitting the data that was previously captured by "Web & App Activity" into two settings. "Search History" will only cover apps that are part of the "Google Workspace" product lineup. There is a full list of those services here, but it's basically Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Contacts, Drive, Google Chat, and Keep—the business apps—and not Google Maps, Google Search, YouTube, and other products that lack a strong business use case. So for paying Workspace users, Search History will now cover usage data for Workspace stuff, while Web & App Activity will cover every other Google product that isn't specifically listed in the Workspace terms.
If there is still one option, is not it still an option? It is out of choices, but not out of options, right?
Bob, Stephanie, and Amir go to get ice cream. Their options are chocolate and vanilla. Bob orders chocolate, and gets the last of the chocolate. Stephanie can only order vanilla, and gets the last of the vanilla ice cream. Amir gets no ice cream, because he is fasting for Ramadan.
Who had options? Show your work for full credit.
Who had options? Show your work for full credit.
Well Amir had a fully diversified portfolio while Stephanie had a 401(k) and Roth IRA with some penny stocks for fun, but Bob mortgaged his house to buy the latest crypto because he was assured it was only going up and he was getting in on the ground floor and this wasn't like the other 67 times he bought crypto and... Oh.
Stephanie had open option left, no choice. Amir had no options of ice cream.
Now there's the clarification everyone needs.
If there is still one option, is not it still an option? It is out of choices, but not out of options, right?
That's a little bit like saying "Only your head stays here, all the rest is totally free to stay or go or whatever you like"
It is a fair option that I would never choose. Does not mean that nobody else do the same, or force me to take the option.
Very true, and hopefully many other verdicts will follow, like "It’s not real consent if....this or that.
This dark pattern has started to spread everywhere already.
It's not consent if there are fifty pages of legalese to read before you press accept.
I’m a big fan of TOSDR and recommend everyone check it out. It’s a site dedicated to translating TOS and EULA into English by attorneys working pro-bono. It’s amazing what you’ll find in some of those agreements.
I can hear PayPal giggling
There's a core tenet in EU consumer protection law that if clauses aren't clear enough to understand by laymen, they can be challenged.
Curious how they expect this to work for people who aren't even "paying" [with money or data] Meta users. Those people who never signed up for any of their services yet are still being tracked across websites via those social sharing buttons and the like. Are they supposed to pay Meta to not hoard their data from all the other websites, despite never setting foot on a Meta site?
It is plain illegal what META is doing there. They just haven't been dragged to court so far.
But with these buttons, the websites which includes them are offenders, too.
see I'd generally pay for privacy stuff
but I would need to pay. and theres no private way to do that.
"Nice data you got there. Be a shame if someone sold that for a premium"
I wish they'd do that in the US for the stupid TOS nonsense they pull. I'm guessing a lot of it wouldn't hold up in court, but it's unlikely to get challenged because an individual just doesn't have the resources to do so, so it chills people into going along with it.
For example:
A lot of this is hidden behind dozens of pages of TOS that pretty much nobody reads. A general, "massive TOS isn't real consent" law could do wonders to improve consumer protections. Specifically, this is what I'd like to see:
Or something along those lines. Consumer protections suck here, and I think this could solve a lot of the problems. Airing dirty laundry can solve a lot of problems.
Some good ideas here. Probably go with a word limit in your last bullet instead of the 5 minutes