Meta prohibited from using personal data for advertisement • Hacker News Board

Re: Meta prohibited from using personal data for advertisement

#221

Post by Lio » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 5:29 PM UTC

dcgudeman wrote: post #209

no_time wrote: post #179

As an EU citizen all I can say is: Get fucked. I hope the EU grows a spine and actually doubles down instead of bowing to US pressure. >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.

[flagged]

What's with the unnecessary "lol" here?

This is just about user choice and freedom from dark patterns.

If you want tracking and targeted ads you are still free to enable that option.

All others are asking for is a chance to opt out of targeting. I don't see why having that as an option is so bad.

If ad targeting was such a great thing for users Facebook/Meta wouldn't have to fight tooth and nail to prevent people having nothing more than an opt out.

Re: Meta prohibited from using personal data for advertisement

#222

Post by mpweiher » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 5:30 PM UTC

quotemstr wrote: post #80

jdiez17 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This decision, as I understand it, renders large swathes of tech service revenue models untenable. To be honest, good riddance. If it is no longer possible to offer users a "free" service in exchange for extremely invasive spying and psychological manipulation (without explicit consent [0]), it forces companies to 1) innovate in order to offer such services for a sustainable price, and 2) encourages competition fro…

> To be honest, good riddance. If it is no longer possible to offer users a "free" service in exchange for extremely invasive spying and psychological manipulation Is it right that a tiny but loud minority be able to ban these ad-supported services for all of society? Going by revealed preferences, most people don't consider targeting advertising to be "spying and psychological manipulation". If they did, usage patte…

Your premise is wrong. Nothing is "banned for all society".

From TFA: "Meta has to get "opt-in" consent for personalized advertisement and must provide users with a "yes/no" option. "

> Going by revealed preferences,

...people are able to reveal their preferences by opting in.

Re: Meta prohibited from using personal data for advertisement

#223

Post by astrange » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 5:30 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #103

whimsicalism wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spy on people? If you like a post on Instagram it is core to their service that they log that information. If they didn't, the app wouldn't work very well.

If I navigate to a page that embeds a Facebook "Like" button, Facebook tracks that I visited that page even if I don't click the button.

This article doesn’t seem to be about tracking.

Re: Meta prohibited from using personal data for advertisement

#224

Post by neotrope » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 5:30 PM UTC

no_time wrote: post #179

As an EU citizen all I can say is: Get fucked. I hope the EU grows a spine and actually doubles down instead of bowing to US pressure. >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.

Equally, as a US citizen and someone who used to work in the ad tech industry, anti-user products (e.g., surveillance capitalism) needs to die.

Re: Meta prohibited from using personal data for advertisement

#225

Post by throw10920 » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 5:30 PM UTC

cguess wrote: post #152

Nextgrid wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legislation is used in cases where individuals either can't make that choice or if individuals' choices would cause negative externalities for some people. That's how we get food safety laws, employment laws, waste disposal laws, etc. With regards to food safety for example, the vast majority of people don't have the equipment nor knowledge to be able to test whether the food they just bought isn't contaminated, so i…

> the vast majority of people don't have the equipment nor knowledge to be able to test whether the food they just bought isn't contaminated, Back in the late 1800's and early 1900's food companies actually tried to convince people that this was the right thing, instead of, you know, just selling unadulterated food. The argument was literally "if we just put 'borax' on some sort of ingredients list people can choose…

> People are awful at understanding their own risk profiles, especially in the face of advertising.

Advertising is also regulated, by the government. The same one that regulates what goes inside of food. If the public is vulnerable to manipulation by advertising, the government is also vulnerable to manipulation by lobbying (remember the USDA "food pyramid" that put grains at the bottom due to industry lobbying?). Your argument is inconsistent because it implies that the government is somehow both simultaneously going to allow the public to be deceived by advertising, but correctly regulate the contents of food itself.

Re: Meta prohibited from using personal data for advertisement

#226

Post by denton-scratch » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

The Irish DPC is supposed to be an independent regulator. In practice, it has acted as an arm of Irish economic policy.

This story shows the DPC for what it is: a regulator that was captured from the beginning. The idea that the DPC might sue EPDB is astonishing and shocking.

This comes as I read of Irish plans for a watered-down Northern Ireland Protocol. That would certainly please the UK government; but it risks subverting EU law. If the Irish government is bent on circumventing EU law, perhaps they should just get out of the EU.

Re: Meta prohibited from using personal data for advertisement

#227

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #75

bunbun69 wrote: post #35

Meta can still use personal data for ads. They just have to explicitly ask for consent. I do not like these sensationalized titles on HN.

I would be totally fine with a regulation where they had to ask before using personal data to show ads. The overreach is that the GDPR requires that the user be able to say "no" but still use the service -- you can't make use of the service conditional on accepting ads, and you can't require users to pay instead.

I'm with you that this isn't ideal, but as a choice between the simplest options, I think GDPR was at least an improvement. The prior status quo was 'you can bury it in the ToS in a basement across town' and led to a market where new entrants couldn't compete on more privacy friendly terms.

I'd guess that even now, just allowing a simple 'pay money or ' choice would just lead to the same issues again. But it's absolutely like a code smell that tells me there's a more nuanced option somewhere that could be better. However, I'm glad they didn't let perfect be the enemy of good in this case.

Re: Meta prohibited from using personal data for advertisement

#228

Post by CogitoCogito » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

jefftk wrote: post #102

robin_reala wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that’s fine: that consumer can choose to opt in.

Except they can't. If a service is only profitable with personalized advertising they aren't allowed to say "if you want to use this service you need to allow us to do personalized advertising". Which means that in the future if there's a service I might want to use which is in this category and if I don't mind having my data used to personalize my advertising, I don't have a choice: the service won't exist.

Yes one of the purposes of the GDPR is to make it so such a service does not exist.

Re: Meta prohibited from using personal data for advertisement

#229

Post by ksenzee » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

technofiend wrote: post #213

whimsicalism wrote: post #6

[flagged]

>Europe that keeps them from being a hotbed of technological innovation [...] across a wide swath of sectors including healthcare and tech. In some cases it's OK and frankly preferable to prevent "technological innovation" that comes from the US. I recently signed up with a new healthcare provider that wanted me to use their portal, but buried in the signup agreement was text that said you agree that if your data is…

Wow. There's no way that should be legal. I hope somebody sues so a judge can rule on it.

Re: Meta prohibited from using personal data for advertisement

#230

Post by no_time » Wed, Jan 04, 2023, 5:31 PM UTC

dcgudeman wrote: post #209

no_time wrote: post #179

As an EU citizen all I can say is: Get fucked. I hope the EU grows a spine and actually doubles down instead of bowing to US pressure. >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.

[flagged]

I unironically enjoy non-targeted ads. Every time I see one that has nothing to do with my interests, I know that my meticulously tuned home network and browser settings are working.