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Meta unlawfully ignores the users' right to easily withdraw consent: complaint

noyb.eu

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Re: Meta unlawfully ignores the users' right to easily withdraw consent: complaint

#72
post #35
post #3

I also applaud this and personally would prefer to just pay for services instead of being the product, but I'm afraid this is not a popular opinion. People don't want to pay, at least not knowingly. I'm curious how this will play out.

Since running a business costs money, the only result that will satisfy organisations like noyb is that companies like Facebook disappear from the EU. You will read many people here in HN openly saying how they would like social media to disappear, not only for themselves, but for everybody else, including those who enjoy it.

You can still show ads. Literally nothing in the EU prevents you from showing ads.

Edit: You can still charge for your services. Literally nothing in the EU prevents you from charging for your services.

Re: Meta unlawfully ignores the users' right to easily withdraw consent: complaint

#73

This is an interesting argument. I wonder how it would be handled if Facebook instead had a 2-tier system where both tiers were paid. So you'd have to pay a base fee to use Facebook (and get tracked) and then a premium tier to remove the tracking. Putting aside the obvious ethical issues with such a system (that are obviously the reason why NOYB is filing), the "as easy to withdraw as it is to give" setup would be ke…

> Ethically, paying for privacy has in my opinion no place in a post-GDPR world (and I do support the GDPR) and it's shameful that several DPAs have tacitly approved of it for local newspapers.

Is that paying for privacy or paying with privacy?

Re: Meta unlawfully ignores the users' right to easily withdraw consent: complaint

#75
post #3

I also applaud this and personally would prefer to just pay for services instead of being the product, but I'm afraid this is not a popular opinion. People don't want to pay, at least not knowingly. I'm curious how this will play out.

Yes me too, mostly.

Through it should be noted that GDPR requires no tracking but not no ads, and companies try to lump that together to pretend there is no reasonable solution.

E.g. a lot of newspapers use approaches similar to Meta (and similar not lawful) i.e. either you get tracked and ads or you pay and get neither ads or tracking. But this is illegal as opting out is noticeable more complex then opting in (account creation requirement is already illegal, money requirement more so). What would be legal would be a choice between "ad(personalized with tracking)" or "ad(no tracking)" and "no ad but account + cost money". You also still can choose ads based on the article/site content etc. (Also another problem with account requirement for no adds is that it often deceptively sneaks in the permission to track when creating the account making it de-facto no option to not be spied on!)

Another problem is that it can be easily too expensive for many people (not just very poor ones). Especially if like currently there are no "supper cheap but also very limited accounts".

I mean consider YT Premium Lite is 5.99€, no ads but you still get tracked. Twitch has no Lite version (and some non YT-lite premium features are actually for free) cost 11.99 (YT non lite is 12.99). Most news papers and similar are between 3€ and 8€ or so, commonly 5€. Of most of them I only read ~1 article per moth or so, often less and often not even the whole article sometimes I just look for a link to the original source and often I realize I just got click baited and bail out. Like you could easily end up 80+€ a month that's just ... to much for many.

And in pretty much all case paying means no ads but not no tracking/selling your information, at best a bit less tracking.

Re: Meta unlawfully ignores the users' right to easily withdraw consent: complaint

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It's very straightforward to interpret, Meta simply doesn't like the interpretation since in any reasonable interpretation of GDPR there is no way for them to be permitted to keep tracking all their users legally, no matter what they write in their terms&conditions or do otherwise.

The "reasonable interpretation of GDPR" would kill nearly every tech company that offers services to the general public for free.

You can say good bye to Maps, YouTube, WhatsApp, etc.

The EU fundamentally does not understand what it takes to run the services it relies on.

Re: Meta unlawfully ignores the users' right to easily withdraw consent: complaint

#77
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

those who believe the above are mutually exclusive, and those who develop social infrastructure

Do I understand correctly that you consider facebook "social infrastructure"? I really hope the fog will lift one day and you'll see the actual impact of facebook (and others), here's one example https://www.afterbabel.com/p/international-mental-illness-pa...

Just because you don't like it does not make it "social infrastructure."

The world runs on WhatsApp and billions use Facebook to keep in touch with their family and friends. Instagram is also a huge part of the social component of the internet.

The bigger problem here is that the EU offers no pathway to companies offering free-to-use, expensive-to-run services online.

If GDPR was interpreted as the EU would like it, everything from WhatsApp to Maps to YouTube would switch to paid-only.

A horde of startups would take up the banner, and as soon as they ran out of VC money, they too would need to switch to paid-only business models in order to adhere to GDPR.

The EU does not understand how to run a successful tech industry.

Edit: Non-targeted ads do not lead to break even. This law will simply lock most poor people out of the internet.

Re: Meta unlawfully ignores the users' right to easily withdraw consent: complaint

#78
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read this once: There are two kinds of people: those who want to make the world a better place and those who want to make enough money to afford to not care.

There's shorter, handier terms for those two types of people: "naive", and "realistic", respectively.

Those nice realistic people ready to bend over any master peeing on them and saying its gold, how nice would have been monarchies for those sweet realistic people

Id call “naive” and “worthless for mankind”

Who knows how many were calling the founding fathers naives

Re: Meta unlawfully ignores the users' right to easily withdraw consent: complaint

#80
post #45

This is an interesting argument. I wonder how it would be handled if Facebook instead had a 2-tier system where both tiers were paid. So you'd have to pay a base fee to use Facebook (and get tracked) and then a premium tier to remove the tracking. Putting aside the obvious ethical issues with such a system (that are obviously the reason why NOYB is filing), the "as easy to withdraw as it is to give" setup would be ke…

> the "as easy to withdraw as it is to give" setup would be kept in such a situation I think. Debatable. Let’s say the base fee was 1€ and premium was 1000000€. Not many people could afford the latter. Even if it were 25€, or 10€, or even lower, as long as there’s any price discrepancy, one is not as easy as the other.

Who cares? No one is making you use Facebook. It is totally okay to walk away and say "nah, I don't want to be tracked."

You can consume alcohol and various drugs in the EU but can't say yes to consenting to tracking. Absolutely absurd.

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