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EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

reuters.com

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Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

#101

Post by gatinsama »

Garvi wrote: post #76
gatinsama wrote: post #45

I have mixed feelings about this. I hate that Europe leads in regulation and lags so much in innovation. At the same time, this is a step in the right direction. True, people don't care about privacy, but it's mostly because they don't understand the extent and implications of letting companies control your data.

If we had been smart, we would have banned Google, Facebook and Amazon on our continent and made our own like the Chinese did. It's telling how ridiculed they still are for this obvious move.

I used to think the Europe was mistaken by demanding that the user's data be processed in Europe and all that, but having read a bit more on history, it's a tactical disadvantage to let someone else have so much control over your society.

Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

#102

Post by Jensson »

CyanBird wrote: post #96
konschubert wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have no reason to assume that FB is using message content to target ads.

Op said "sent a message to a friend", it made no reference to facebook Gmail famously scans the user emails to sell the info to third parties and sell adds Ought be noted that while WhatsApp to my knowledgeable doesn't carry such a clause. It would be idiotic beyond belief to be led to believe that Facebook doesn't do the exact same thing

> Gmail famously scans the user emails to sell the info to third parties and sell adds

They don't: "We will not scan or read your Gmail messages to show you ads"

https://support.google.com/mail/answer/6603?hl=en#:~:text=Th....

Do you have evidence that they do? I think Google said they did this a long time ago, but they stopped since email content didn't actually improve revenue on those ads. Message data just isn't very helpful for ads, they would do it if it was useful but it isn't so they don't.

Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

#103

Post by [deleted] »

capableweb wrote: post #36
kwanbix wrote: post #6

I know in HN there is a big "personalized advertising" is bad sentiment, but I don't get what the problem is. I mean, if I am looking for a notebook, I rather have FB/IG (or Google or whatever), show me adds of a notebook that I might end up buying, instead of the generic poker/porn adds that we had on the beginning of the internet. It is almost impossible to have a free internet without ads. So on one side, people w…

> I mean, if I am looking for a notebook, I rather have FB/IG (or Google or whatever), show me adds of a notebook that I might end up buying, instead of the generic poker/porn adds that we had on the beginning of the internet. That's all fine and dandy, I think. The problem starts to become a bit bigger when suddenly everyone in your household starts to see "chlamydia medication" ads everywhere they go online based o…

[deleted]

Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

#104

Post by Semaphor »

gpderetta wrote: post #82
Semaphor wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is common in Italy as well. Do you have any (English) links to court reports?

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-datensc...

Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

#105

Post by vasdae »

gpderetta wrote: post #85
vasdae wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a conspiracy here that people can't see. Free sites will close without targeted advertisement, obviously; they barely can afford to pay salaries now, so with untargeted ads it will be impossible. And the only media sites that will be able to afford to run are those that are subsidised by the state. This is already happening in Europe, where most of the big media are practically bankrupt and their income comes…

I don't understand. We were able to run with untargeted ads for decades. Why now, suddenly only targeted ads are viable?

That's not true, ads have always been targeted. On the telly you don't see the same ads on all stations all the time. They are segmented depending on the average profile of the viewer. If you are watching a soap opera you will see ads for diapers for female incontinence.

Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

#106

Post by autoexec »

kwanbix wrote: post #6

I know in HN there is a big "personalized advertising" is bad sentiment, but I don't get what the problem is. I mean, if I am looking for a notebook, I rather have FB/IG (or Google or whatever), show me adds of a notebook that I might end up buying, instead of the generic poker/porn adds that we had on the beginning of the internet. It is almost impossible to have a free internet without ads. So on one side, people w…

> It is almost impossible to have a free internet without ads

I'd argue that it's impossible to have a free internet with ads. I'm old enough to have seen the internet before it was ad infested and it wasn't lacking for great content. Humans seem to have a need to share (or at least show off).

Who is paying you to post comments here on HN? I'm guessing nobody, but here you are, contributing to the internet for free.

Without ads we'd lose some things certainly, but the greater the focus there is on making money the worst everything seems to get. The best things are usually the free things, at least until greed causes enshittification to set in.

Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

#107

Post by ahoka »

pembrook wrote: post #75

Ok, my contrarian hot take (for HN at least). The real entities we need to be afraid of in regards to privacy are governments & politicians, not companies & entrepreneurs. The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap. The government on the other hand can literally ruin your life (or even end it in some countries). The EU is doing a fantastic job of keeping everyone distracted by pointing the finger a…

As the old saying goes: don’t lie, don’t steal: the government doesn’t like competition.

Although I do believe that governments should be liable (is this the best word?) to people and in turn make companies liable too.

Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

#108

Post by kwanbix »

gatinsama wrote: post #52
capableweb wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, if I am looking for a notebook, I rather have FB/IG (or Google or whatever), show me adds of a notebook that I might end up buying, instead of the generic poker/porn adds that we had on the beginning of the internet. That's all fine and dandy, I think. The problem starts to become a bit bigger when suddenly everyone in your household starts to see "chlamydia medication" ads everywhere they go online based o…

It's not just that someone else will know that you have chlamydia, it's that they have your data and you don't know what they will do with it. We don't know what they can do and there could be more serious stuff.

What do you think they can do?

Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

#109

Post by Tyr42 »

varispeed wrote: post #74
SonicScrub wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are parts of my life that are fine for ad companies to know. What clothes I like, what music I like, what sports I like etc. These are all benign, and even useful to me if ad companies know about them. The sentiment of your comment makes sense when applied to these topics. But then there are things that I don't want ad companies to know about. My medical history, my likely voting patterns, my political affiliat…

You also don't know if in 10 years time the country gets a radical, religiously fanatical government, that will then order these companies to list users who are non-believers, have "wrong" sexuality or supported the opposition. When Nazis invaded a city, first thing they'd have done was getting to people register and getting names and addresses of "undesirables". People have not learned their lesson.

Heck, look at Texas and abortions and you will find previously data going from "ick but harmless" to "legally very bad"

Re: EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

#110

Post by repelsteeltje »

smeej wrote: post #60
repelsteeltje wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting line of reasoning. :-) That would imply, that (globally) we spent significantly [EDIT: remove -less-, insert:] more on advertising before the advent of personalized targeting.

I think it's the other way around. If we go back to the situation in the past, price goes up, not down.

Correct, my bad.

Got confused while writing by the observation that ad expenditure is rising year after year. So clearly, the "savings" allegedly attributed to personalized targeting have not translated to advertisers.

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