171–180 of 443 posts
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But wouldn't different ads be a different service?
No, under GDPR you can't coerce a user into give up their privacy in order to receive the service for free. If they offer the service for free, the tracking still need to be opt in.
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If you think that the price is not worth it, you are free to refuse the transaction. The EU govt here is requiring the counterparty to provide you with the service even if you refuse the transaction.
I think this is like predatory lending laws - you can be forced to give someone a loan at a reasonable price, even if you can convince them to pay way more. The same argument also works for voluntary slavery - I think people have the right to say "even if it's initially consensual, it still seems like an abusive business model that we shouldn't allow"
I get the logic of rendering certain voluntary transactions illegal. Child labor (questionably voluntary) & minimum wage laws come to mind. This is distinct because those laws don't require companies to hire people at minimum wage.
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Don't forget the military as well
It baffles me why any tech business would bother expanding into the EU when other foreign markets are available elsewhere like South America. At some point cost will outweigh benefit regarding a market that's already shifting into irrelevance
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This would not be valid under GDPR, they would still need to have a tracking opt in for the "free" version. There are no loopholes to this.
I don't think this is true, many news sites either offer the option to accept cookies and show ads or offer a subscription without ads and tracking cookies. This has been ruled as being valid by courts.
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In practice they will get away with it because good luck enforcing those penalties on a company without any assets you can reach.
Countries would block access for business advertising or operating with Facebook, and may even decide to block access to their users.
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>will this mean retroactively resetting ALL users to no? Yes, because Meta does not have explicit, informed consent from existing users.
As if that has EVER stopped them before
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"the market" isn't some omnipotent magical force that inherently provides all options. Given the current status quo, it's pretty clear that "the market" isn't solving this problem. Legislation is needed because "the market" has failed to regulate itself. "the market" does not work for consumers, it's shaped for and by sellers. Left to its own devices, capitalism creates conditions that are explicitly harmful to the p…
>it's pretty clear that "the market" isn't solving this problem. Have you considered that it isn't being solved because consumers don't actually mind the extra tracking? All the tracking does is attempt to give them better ads. Better ads provide a better user experience. Personalized ads are a win win for both the company and the user.
That said: The personalisation of the adverts is, at least in my case, pretty terrible — FB and Twitter categorised me as being interested in sports I've never watched, languages I've not learned, and politics of countries I've never lived in.
As someone else replied to me here, it's good that they're bad, because bad ads are easier to ignore.
>Fine for Meta more than tenfold from € 28 million to € 390 million. Third case on WhatsApp pending.
Starting to get into a range for the fine that makes sense. Give it another tenfold increase and I'm content.
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Just because we somehow ended up in a situation where spyware got effectively decriminalised doesn't mean it's a good situation especially in the long-term. If nobody is willing to pay for your product, maybe it shouldn't exist?
How much do you pay for HN?