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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

#141

Post by ben_w »

anfogoat wrote: post #120
gpderetta wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corporations can ruin your life just fine.

As long as they manage to somehow manipulate the government to help them do it.

Being a gatekeeper to something important is sufficient. If Apple and Google both consider you a persona non grata, you will have a tough time getting by when the businesses you use daily (let alone government agencies) start insisting on interacting only via an app. Meta does that, and businesses that use only Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram all suddenly can't see you.

Similar effects with money, though at least PayPal is no longer really a gatekeeper.

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

#142

Post by tjoff »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #122
mjburgess wrote: post #90

Comments here so far focus on personalised ads as the issue -- but that's a symptom of what's being banned, which is the mass collection of personal data. Personalised ads are beside the point. The issue is how they are personalised, namely by building a rich profile of user behaviour based on non-consensual tracking. It isnt even clear that there's a meaningful sense of 'consent' to what modern ad companies (ie., go…

Why should it be illegal? I don’t understand the moral threat. Personally I feel that privacy gets too much airtime as a value — I see lots of other more direct issues (like political manipulation) that will remain an issue even with “strong privacy.”

Why should X be allowed to track me against my will?

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

#143

Post by sib »

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

Please stop repeating falsehoods.

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

#144

Post by Nextgrid »

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…

This way of thinking is extremely dangerous as it plays in favor of government surveillance.

Without "companies & entrepreneurs", the government would have to build, fund and maintain their own surveillance infrastructure. This might be difficult since nobody would intentionally embed "NSAAnalytics.js" or use "NSABook", so covert methods will be necessary which are costlier and less effective at scale.

On the other hand, "companies & entrepreneurs" already built an industrial-scale, financially sustainable surveillance system that the government doesn't even have to pay for, and since it's not technically operated by the government, a lot of the legal protections against direct government surveillance also go out the window. Even better, while people may not use "NSABook" they happily do use "Facebook".

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

#145

Post by AlexandrB »

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…

Reading this, it's like the Snowden leaks never happened. Large companies should basically be regarded as appendages of the government because there's good money in acting as a government contractor and providing data on request. In this respect, privacy from companies ~= privacy from government.

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

#146

Post by poisonborz »

absqueued wrote: post #113
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…

I disagree. EU data practices differ significantly from tech giants; they're governed by strict GDPR rules, requiring consent for personal data processing. No EU nation systematically tracks citizens like tech companies do for ads. It's difficult to compare the data collection practices of EU nations directly with those of large tech companies like Facebook or Google, there are some parallels and distinctions to be m…

There is no such thing as "weaker encryption". Either your data is securely encrypted, or you are being deceived.

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

#147

Post by mjburgess »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #122
mjburgess wrote: post #90

Comments here so far focus on personalised ads as the issue -- but that's a symptom of what's being banned, which is the mass collection of personal data. Personalised ads are beside the point. The issue is how they are personalised, namely by building a rich profile of user behaviour based on non-consensual tracking. It isnt even clear that there's a meaningful sense of 'consent' to what modern ad companies (ie., go…

Why should it be illegal? I don’t understand the moral threat. Personally I feel that privacy gets too much airtime as a value — I see lots of other more direct issues (like political manipulation) that will remain an issue even with “strong privacy.”

The ability to aggregate personal information of large numbers of people is a form of political power. Facebook can, if it so wishes, provide a list of all gay people in an area; all supporters of gaza or of israel; all people who have recently commented on an article about drugs.

The very ability to provide that list previously required an expensive secret police; today it does not.

This is an extremely dangerous ability for anyone to have -- human rights (such as that to privacy) were won against oppression. They aren't optional, they're the system by which we prevent those previous eras from reoccurring.

This is why i'm suspicious of the being a meaningful sense of 'consent' here -- if enough people consent, then the tracking agency acquires a novel political power over everyone. This is why the infrastructure of tracking itself is a concern.

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

#148

Post by throw_nbvc1234 »

hdhianao wrote: post #132
thewaywego wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its facebook....assuming anything but the worst handling of user data is beyond foolish

This comment actually is a symptom of another problem. If you ask a random person if big ad tech should collect personal data in exchange for providing social media for free with ads, they would say no. But then immideately they would also walk into a Walgreens/CVS (pharmacies in the US) and the first thing they are asked at the cashier counter is their phone number and almost everyone just provides it with no second…

In fact they've been doing it for over a decade

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...

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

#150

Post by nologic01 »

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…

Gimme a break. For starters the EU is not a "government". Digital state surveillance can only be practiced as a "national competency".

More importantly though, the real underlying enemy here has always been citizen apathy, ignorance and distraction about digital privacy (and more general about individual agency in the digital era).

Unfortunately in modern times active citizenship has degenerated into polarization and false dichotomies. Unless people are hit in the head with clear and present dangers they stand dazed and confused.

This behavior has been actively encouraged by governments worldwide for decades. E.g. they are all still actively promoting citizenry engagement in these platforms.

If a certain coalition of countries (for whatever reason) raises warnings about practices in the private sector this can only result in a more informed debate. A debate that has been largely absent so far.

BTW:

> The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap.

I don't know what companies exist in your world but in the real world a company can deny you entry to public transport, medical care, access to the financial system (banking and insurance) and salaried employment to name but a few "non-soap" issues.

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