It seems to me that this precedent potentially kills off a big chunk of the ad-supported app economy.
How are investors reacting to this?
Grindr to be fined almost €10M over GDPR complaint
151–160 of 297 posts
Re: Grindr to be fined almost €10M over GDPR complaint
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being gay can still get you arrested or killed in some countries of the world. Even if not, discrimination of gay people surely is a thing all over the world. Besides that, dating apps of any kind should be held to very high data protection standards for the sometimes very delicate matters.
Being Hindu can get you killed in some countries too, that doesn't make me, a Hindu, in the UK, vulnerable. Has everyone just decided that words have no meaning anymore?
Why is the country relevant? The app is used globally
Re: Grindr to be fined almost €10M over GDPR complaint
#153> Grindr is now relying on a new consent system and alleged "legitimate interest" to use data without user consent. This is in conflict with the decision of the Norwegian DPA, as it explicitly held that "any extensive disclosure ... for marketing purposes should be based on the data subject’s consent". This "legitimate interest" shenanigans is coming up more and more often, where you have a modal with lots of options…
This is a great example, that I intend to hang on to. I've run into a few people online with some severe willful ignorance about the GDPR. The worst was somebody arguing that since targeted advertising was their business model, that in itself constituted a "legitimate interest". So, pretty much exactly the sort of thing that GDPR forbids.
Re: Grindr to be fined almost €10M over GDPR complaint
#154The GDPR has always amazed me. It changed the playing field from "you can use our free app as long as you give us data for marketing or not use it" to "you can provide a free service in the EU as long as you dont collect data for marketing or dont provide it" Without making a judgement on the merits of the approach, as a user/individual I appreciate the power this gives to protect my data. As a company/developer the…
This fear mongering is absurd. You won't get fined millions just because you didn't delete something by mistake. You will get fined however if you do this repeatedly and deliberately.
Re: Grindr to be fined almost €10M over GDPR complaint
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some tools call APIs from a whole bunch of ad networks. That 60 seconds is likely spent getting opt out cookies from dozens of different ad network domains.
TrustArc's doesn't, or at least didn't the last two times I inspected it deeply. It is possible to reproduce this claim by checking the browser inspector Network tab and by debugging trough the source code: it's just a bunch of setTimeouts. Not to mention that if there were any hypothetical API calls those could be made asynchronously after closing the modal. It's purely a dark pattern.
>Not to mention that if there were any hypothetical API calls those could be made asynchronously after closing the modal.
If you did that, users wouldn't be able to see whether their opt out was successful.
Re: Grindr to be fined almost €10M over GDPR complaint
#156> Grindr is now relying on a new consent system and alleged "legitimate interest" to use data without user consent. This is in conflict with the decision of the Norwegian DPA, as it explicitly held that "any extensive disclosure ... for marketing purposes should be based on the data subject’s consent". This "legitimate interest" shenanigans is coming up more and more often, where you have a modal with lots of options…
It’s almost impressive what these people have created. Now, when I stumble across the rare “Reject All” button on one of those pop ups, I don’t know if they even really mean “all” or if it keeps the trackers under “legitimate interests” enabled because they’re... “legitimate”. So the only safe option ends up being disabling all of them manually, which is absurd when these websites list hundreds and hundreds of tracke…
With that they win the public's opinion. I make an effort to always explain to people I hear complaining about those pop-ups why they've been made to be annoying. Usually it helps to turn their opinion against GDPR towards the companies employing the dark patterns.
No one likes to be blatantly manipulated.
Re: Grindr to be fined almost €10M over GDPR complaint
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some tools call APIs from a whole bunch of ad networks. That 60 seconds is likely spent getting opt out cookies from dozens of different ad network domains.
Why is the “opt out cookie” necessary? Why can’t they just assume that anyone who doesn’t have an opt in cookie hasn’t opted in and can’t be tracked? Isn’t the opt out cookie itself a form of tracking? If you have the cookie I know you’ve been to a site I advertise on/track/am affiliated with.
The opt out cookie was created by ad networks prior to GDPR when many EU countries allowed for opt in by default. The opt out cookie was the tool to allow users to opt out. It still has value today as it allows an ad network to remember a user's choice not to be tracked.
The opt out cookie is set by the advertiser, not the publisher, and the contents of the cookie have generic text like "OPT OUT".
Re: Grindr to be fined almost €10M over GDPR complaint
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
They have more disposable income than the median.
Could you cite that? If you're comparing median to median, I find that very unlikely. There are plenty of soft barriers to progress for gay men.
Gay men are less likely to have children, so not having the expenses resulting from that leaves more disposable income.
This is what I've seen cited as a reason multiple times. I have no reference to point to, maybe someone else does?
Re: Grindr to be fined almost €10M over GDPR complaint
#159> Grindr is now relying on a new consent system and alleged "legitimate interest" to use data without user consent. This is in conflict with the decision of the Norwegian DPA, as it explicitly held that "any extensive disclosure ... for marketing purposes should be based on the data subject’s consent". This "legitimate interest" shenanigans is coming up more and more often, where you have a modal with lots of options…
The various dark patterns employed by these consent systems are fairly opaque to anyone who bothers to open them, and are clearly deliberate attempts at maintaining the old status quo of "opt-in by default". Frankly, I am surprised at how few of these fines are flying around, though I am quite happy to hear they _are_ happening. I do get that this type of regulation is very disruptive to many companies, but if they c…
I’ve also wondered why there aren’t “enough” fines. Are the countries just being cautious because they want to establish precedent before going after the “big fish” like Facebook or Google? Or is it something else?
Re: Grindr to be fined almost €10M over GDPR complaint
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know why you are bringing Facebook into this. Its business model is completely different, afaik it doesn't offer paid subscription to opt out of all tracking. This is known as straw man fallacy - misrepresenting someone's position and then rebut that. What you are suggesting is not like "women should be allowed to vote" it's akin to "women must vote".
What does the business model have to do with everything? I was merely replying to this: > sharing users' personal data, something that influences only them It does not influence only them, and I gave you an example. Also, I don't care what's FB's business model, I advocate that nobody should have an automatic right to build user profiles. I explicitly advocate that you should not have the right to demand payment in "…
I didn't expect having to qualify everything I say to the context of a discussion and topic on hand. I don't agree on your definition of personal data. Phone numbers and email addresses of my contacts are personal information that don't belong to me, I have merely unwritten consent to use them (but not to give them to every spammer).
But none of that seemed to be relevant to the Grindr fine. And one thing I should have probably mentioned before - I don't know Grindr and how the subscription works there, but my opinion on paying(subscription) vs giving data away would also depend if there were additional features granted in the subscription (now thinking about it probably yes) or not. This would in my opinion qualify as forcing user into paying even for thing he might not necessarily want to just to protect own privacy.