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EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram

reuters.com

341–350 of 765 posts

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

#341

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.

Your hypothetical evil government isn’t going to go “aw shucks, I guess I can’t kill the unbelievers because Facebook doesn’t track them!”

Evil regimes have never had a problem finding lots and lots of citizens to kill in the 99% of human history before the internet.

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

#342
post #272

I would love to see a regulation put in place requiring companies to notify their users every time they transfer data about their users to another organization. If the data is "anonymized", the company should have to notify all their users. If the company has contact info for the user, it should send the user a notification via that contact info. Even if that means having to send a physical letter. The company should…

GDPR does this. Look at the sections around Subprocessors.

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

#343
post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you willing to pay for all internet websites then?

Many websites don't have ads, and I'd be happy if all others disappeared.

Ok but you’re not the only person on the internet. Other people have different preferences, and in fact some even enjoy personalized ads. Nobody is forcing you to look at ads on the internet, so why is it fair to force others to not look at ads on the internet?

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

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.”

Wait until you read about Cambridge Analytica.

Wait until you read about tactics Obama used before Cambridge..

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/facebook-data-...

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

#345
post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should it be illegal? I don’t understand the moral threat Okay, then it should be legal for me to use Facebooks/Google's 'Intellectual Property' however I want. Why should it be legal for them to steal my data, but illegal for me to use their's?

They’re not stealing it, you’re giving it to them in exchange for using the products for free.

It seems dishonest to frame it as a market transaction when it clearly isn't. There is no explicit agreement, and most users probably don't have the slightest clue what data they're giving up.

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

#346
I am an european and I am pretty sure that some day in the EU they will regulate even the position to go to po...

Also, we are pretty broke now so get ready for looking for gold even underground...

In the meantime... these people do not do more important homework...

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

#347

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…

> EU data practices differ significantly from tech giants; they're governed by strict GDPR rules, requiring consent for personal data processing.

This is false. May I introduce you to chat control or client side scanning on every device that you own?

That what is the proposal is currently. All the data would be funneled to Europol, which would have access to every text, every image , every thing you do on your messaging apps. Does that sound like consent to you?

> My take (being in EU) is that with weaker encryption, the EU tries to balance privacy with law enforcement needs, aiming to curb illicit communications while raising privacy concerns.

You can have encryption or no encryption. If the EU can read your messages, so can China, Russia, Iran and anybody else who either buys their way into the system or breaks in illegally.

> 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 made.

That's right at least with GDPR, companies have to delete my data after a certain amount of time but some governments of Europe don't have too. There is this thing called data retention:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive

It's been illegal for some time now but some governments in Europe (France for example) have decided that they don't care and keep doing it. Welcome to the land of privacy.

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

#348

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…

Governments do exactly the same: they track you in the name of a million things. Now they have in the works even a law for 'free information' (in trh European Union) that can force journalists to disclose sources in the name of national security...

I am not saying this should not be illegal. Probably it should. What I am saying is that noone should be able to track but the state can do it. Noone should be able to.

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

#349
This is not a ban on personalized/behaviorial advertising. If a user consents, behavior advertising is still allowed.

From the press release (https://edpb.europa.eu/news/news/2023/edpb-urgent-binding-de...):

  "On 27 October, the EDPB adopted an urgent binding decision ... to impose a ban on the processing of personal data for behavioural advertising on the legal bases of contract and legitimate interest ..."
Under GDPR Article 6, all processing of personal data requires one of the following lawful bases: consent, contractual obligation, legal obligation, vital interests of a person, public interest, or legitimate interests of the controller. The ban says that Meta can't use two of these as bases---contract, legitimate interest---for behavior advertising. Behavior advertising that is consented to is a-okay.

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

#350
post #343
post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many websites don't have ads, and I'd be happy if all others disappeared.

Ok but you’re not the only person on the internet. Other people have different preferences, and in fact some even enjoy personalized ads. Nobody is forcing you to look at ads on the internet, so why is it fair to force others to not look at ads on the internet?

If some people like being spied on and some don't, why would you oppose the legislation that websites should let people choose for themselves if they want to be spied on?
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