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Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe

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Re: Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe

#361

Post by tremon »

aflag wrote: post #327
nomel wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It looks like this suit as all about users of Facebook and Instagram being forced to agree to tracking to use the service. Is the reality that they'll be tracked regardless, just now through a thin veil of indirection (as with the shadow profiles)?

I think tracking users without their consent is already illegal.

To be more specific: this ruling confirms that tracking users with only implied consent is illegal. What Facebook tried to do here is to make user tracking an integral part of their service by putting it in their TOS. The GDPR is quite clear that such tracking can never be a legitimate business interest and therefore a) users must agree to it explicitly, b) consent for tracking may be withdrawn at any time, and c) withdrawal of consent may not be tied to the rest of the service offering (i.e. a business may not refuse service if users decline to be tracked).

Re: Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe

#362

Post by tremon »

johndhi wrote: post #162

This is a crazy way of making laws, IMO. To recap: a law was put in place 5 years ago that said if you get consent you can basically use data in any way, with some very vague and general language about how consent can be gathered and what it means. Meanwhile, Facebook has invested billions of dollars in building and developing a platform according to their fair reading of that law. Then, some random guy says he doesn…

according to their fair reading of that law.

If their "fair reading" of that law is about as accurate as the characterization in your post, it's no wonder they lose court case after court case about it.

Re: Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe

#363

Post by [deleted] »

Satam wrote: post #239
isbvhodnvemrwvn wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What entitles you to spy on me? I don't give a shit about your revenue.

It's not my revenue. If you believe any business is evil if it has has paid salaries out of the revenues boosted by efficient advertising, that's your prerogative. I am open to hearing how exactly targeted advertising has damaged our society but I will not accept vague notions of spying and privacy as an argument. Most of the entities powerful enough to spy on you currently, will continue to do so discretely.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe

#364

Post by nomel »

tremon wrote: post #361
aflag wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think tracking users without their consent is already illegal.

To be more specific: this ruling confirms that tracking users with only implied consent is illegal. What Facebook tried to do here is to make user tracking an integral part of their service by putting it in their TOS. The GDPR is quite clear that such tracking can never be a legitimate business interest and therefore a) users must agree to it explicitly, b) consent for tracking may be withdrawn at any time, and c) wi…

> The GDPR is quite clear that such tracking can never be a legitimate business interest

I assume the "can never" is actually a "should never", considering the profits that Facebook makes from it. ;)

Re: Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe

#365

Post by maldev »

wpietri wrote: post #82
maldev wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook's future isn't in the social media space though. Most of their endeavors are in VR and other cutting edge technologies, hence the name change to Meta. I wouldn't be surprised if they saw the writing on the walls years ago. They've been hiring AI, and VR researchers for years now and are the industry leader in VR at least.

But a leader in what exactly? I have been looking for years for actual usage stats. E.g., MAU and UAM for VR headsets, especially ones broken out by length of ownership. I get that people are buying Oculus units because of the hype, but is there much sustained usage? If so, what exactly is keeping people engaged once the novelty wears off? As comparison, look at Amazon's smart speakers. $10 billion spent, lots of hyp…

The end result you see in the VR headset, or the games/worlds arn't really the goal.

AI, and VR tech don't pay out right now. But AI is rapidly developing and Meta is one of the leaders in AI research. We could easily see chatbots, Alex like things, or even manufacturing and disability assistance. Or robots and image classification. Skies the limit. The thing is with this tech, the killer product doesn't even exist yet, and probably isn't even a thought in someones mind.

The goal is to make it so when the killer product does arrive, all the R&D they've invested is able to allow them to become to dominate leader. The same also applies to VR tech and the interfaces for VR. It's not a consumer focused field, but their R&D is worth millions, and when it comes time for the killer product, they'll have it, or be able to smother the one who does.

And this honestly makes sense for a company like Facebook. Their golden goose is dying. Facebook won't churn out money. All the legislation against them is killer, and they know it's a market propped up by easy VC money where almost no social media company makes money. So why not invest the all their billions into future tech we'll see likely playout in 5-10 years, where they will then be able to completely pivot to that product. It's the long game.

Re: Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe

#366

Post by bluefirebrand »

nomel wrote: post #364
tremon wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be more specific: this ruling confirms that tracking users with only implied consent is illegal. What Facebook tried to do here is to make user tracking an integral part of their service by putting it in their TOS. The GDPR is quite clear that such tracking can never be a legitimate business interest and therefore a) users must agree to it explicitly, b) consent for tracking may be withdrawn at any time, and c) wi…

> The GDPR is quite clear that such tracking can never be a legitimate business interest I assume the "can never" is actually a "should never", considering the profits that Facebook makes from it. ;)

I assume it means that it legally can never be considered legitimate.

Not that it can never make money.

Re: Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe

#367

Post by BlueTemplar »

jstummbillig wrote: post #170

I feel there is a risk in having the cost of privacy getting transferred to the user that we have yet to actually confront, and it worries me that we are not doing that. I am not exactly breaking the news: If companies make less money through ads, they have to make it "some other way" (which so far has resolved in "making the user pay directly"). A lot of people have been suggesting that it's not their business to fi…

For one alternative way to do microtransactions another way, see how Flattr 2.0 did it with its browser plugin :

https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/flattr2.html

https://github.com/flattr/flattr-extension/

(Yes, this does potentially give a lot of power to Flattr. But not that much, barely more than Patreon, as long as most of the processing stays local, and they only get the aggregate usage once per month ? And the open source aspect should keep them honest...)

Re: Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe

#368

Post by BlueTemplar »

wpietri wrote: post #260
babypuncher wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that they invented the modern form factor of a smartphone, and a lot of the software design principles that go along with it. If you handed a kid an iPhone 2G plus a bunch of BlackBerries and Palm Treos from 2007 and asked them to classify the devices, I bet they would only call one of them a "smartphone".

If by "the modern form factor" you mean the slab of glass with a virtual keyboard, sure. Good for them. (Actually, I didn't look; maybe somebody else did that first. But I'll assume you checked.) They also did a bunch of the "crossing the chasm" work, and they marketed the hell out of it. But that is distinct from inventing the smartphone. Apple generally doesn't invent things; they let other people invent and pionee…

Apple didn't even do that first... or at least weren't alone doing that (though their competitors quickly failed for one reason or another, until Android)

Re: Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe

#369

Post by jstummbillig »

matkoniecz wrote: post #345
justapassenger wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People also were able to communicate before there was an internet. None of this internet is needed to allow people to communicate. Personalized ads are as big of a breakthrough for the ads industry as internet is for people's communication. Both also come with legit downsides, but saying it's not needed is naive, at best.

Ads with tracking are not needed for us, even if beneficial for ad industry. And personalization based on where ad is being displayed is not a problem in general.

> Ads with tracking are not needed for us

This is only true in the most naive sense. Through added efficiency we generate additional money. The information industry today and everyone that uses part of it was enabled through that added efficiency/money. Companies paying doctor money for programmers is not an accident. It's a consequence.

Sure, you can do ads without tracking like in the old days. You can also also do some amount of cancer treatment without chemo, or get old without any system of elderly care. It was "just fine" for hundreds or thousands of years. Parts of it might even look enticing. But if you cut out chemo, be prepared to die "naturally" younger, and if you cut out elderly care, be prepared, at the very least, to debilitate a generation of women, who will not participate in the workforce.

You can simply not expect the internet to get rid of just ad tracking, the additional money it provides and have everything else stay the same. A lot of silly things are being done with the money, things that nobody will miss, but if you expect only the bad things to go consolidate and all the fun and good parts to remain when ad efficiency and revenue goes down, I don't know what to tell you.

Re: Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe

#370

Post by Nextgrid »

stickfigure wrote: post #336
berkes wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you don't have a right to dictate to others how to run their business. Actually, we do. It's called democracy and how laws are made that companies have to adhere to.

Democracy has jurisdictional limitations. Good luck extraditing company owners/managers for the crime of "didn't display a cookie banner".

Fortunately for us, Facebook voluntarily opened subsidiaries in EU countries so extradition is not necessary!
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