EU data regulator bans personalised advertising on Facebook and Instagram • Hacker News Board

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

#571

Post by digging » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 6:05 PM UTC

_jal wrote: post #425

digging wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and I, and probably a few others here on HN, are slowly being sifted into a parallel "unsocial" world, I fear. It's genuinely disgusting to see the kind of personal data we're expected to pass out by the truckload for every little digital trinket and feature, let alone entire facets of society such as dating apps.

I'm in the same boat. My internet excludes a bunch of ASs used by surveillance shops. This is what we're asking for. I am refusing to divulge information about me I don't want to share. Other people are building whatever on top of that data. I can hardly complain about lack of inclusion when I am the one refusing to feed their robots. If you want people at Cheers to know your name, you... have to tell them your name.…

> It sounds like maybe you're more conflicted.

Only in the sense that I'm mad that it's hard to get any good new technology that isn't a privacy nightmare.

I see Cool App #354 and think it looks fun to use, but I am only allowed to use it if I give up my privacy. Since I don't want to do that, Cool App #354, which doesn't need any (or at least all) of that data to do the functions I like, is something I can only watch friends use.

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

#572

Post by FinnKuhn » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 6:06 PM UTC

JAlexoid wrote: post #469

FinnKuhn wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just want to note that even if you are only afraid of the government in regards to privacy and not companies guess who those companies sell your data and privacy to. As an example the US government already buys location data from companies [1]. Protecting your privacy from the government (while also important) isn't enough due to companies sharing their data with the government, sometimes even for free and without…

> Therefore you can't protect your privacy from the government without also protecting it from companies. This is reasonable. Though knowing that the data used to serve ads has very little overlap with the information that governments are interested in, makes this move more pointlessly destructive. Funny enough, the data that governments are interested in isn't getting restricted. There are laws about how to protect…

Well, the EU is telling companies to stop collecting data they themselves are very interested in. For example Google was fined for misleading settings that enabled them to track locations [1].

You can't look at governments, but especially the EU, as a single entity. Some parts of it want to collect all data possible while others want to protect your privacy. Here is a good article on how EU courts and the Irish government for example had very different views on this topic [2].

The general pattern you can observe is some political entities and/or countries really like to push surveillance and data retention laws in the name of security, sometimes without possible understanding the amount of misuse this could enable [3]. On the other hand privacy activists and other political entities and/or countries fight back against those and push for laws protecting privacy and your data or prohibit mass surveillance [4]. Sometimes those political "battles" are pretty obvious, with a recent example being the chat-control plans of the European Commission that the European Parliament will hopefully/likely reject [5].

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/12/google-android-location-tr... [2] https://www.politico.eu/article/data-retention-europe-mass-s... [3] https://netzpolitik.org/2021/urgently-needed-france-spain-pu... [4] https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/11/23719694/eu-ai-act-draft-... [5] https://www.aol.com/privacy-busting-chat-control-plans-17282...

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

#573

Post by redder23 » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 6:07 PM UTC

Fuck yeah! I have no clue how it came this far, they really banned it. Not just mandated to be default and opt-in? That is crazy, and I honestly fail to understand why they are doing this, I mean do not get me wrong, I like it, I just do not trust the EU AT ALL. They are so in with big business, what do they gain from this? And do not tell me they are doing this "for the people". Probably because it's American companies and they want to push EU companies.

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

#574

Post by GrinningFool » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 6:10 PM UTC

kwanbix wrote: post #108

gatinsama wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just that someone else will know that you have chlamydia, it's that they have your data and you don't know what they will do with it. We don't know what they can do and there could be more serious stuff.

What do you think they can do?

Get hacked, phished, or otherwise expose the data to the world.

Personal data should be toxic with high potential liability costs. This would naturally cause companies to limit their data retention and use.

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

#575

Post by I_Am_Nous » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 6:10 PM UTC

pembrook wrote: post #389

lock-the-spock wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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). No, the worst thing a company can do is to influence your desires, feelings and behaviours, causing you to spend money irresponsibly, getting your kids addicted to useless games, ... All that is also what this kind of tracking aims at. It is quite incredibl…

> Advertisement used to be fact based, but it's nowaday all emotional trickery...Targeted advertising has already changed governments, caused hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies, family trouble and breakups, and many sucides. Wow. I guess if we ban it then, we'll be living in a perfect utopia...like we used to have in the past? Have you ever considered that "Targeted Advertising" could be, for the most part, a way…

Advertising has always struggled with being too manipulative. Before targeted internet ads, magazines touched up imperfections on models to enhance the "buy this and be beautiful" message they were selling. Before they could retouch photos as easily, they forced models to barely eat to be "thin and attractive", affecting the mental health of people who felt "bad" for not looking like a model...which made them more susceptible to buying the "fix" the company is pushing.

Neutral market speak about "market efficiency" and matching customers with issues to businesses with solutions is fine, but talking about it at the expense of acknowledging that advertising CAN be harmful is against the point the parent comment is making.

I remember Enzyte commercials on TV in the 2000s. Manipulative against manhood, people who tried the drug had to have a doctors note saying "No, Enzyte didn't make my client's penis size increase" to be "allowed" to cancel their subscription. I can't even begin to imagine the hell someone with a "has small penis" ad profile lives in with targeted ads.

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

#576

Post by tremon » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 6:11 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #486

xxs wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the actual system setting that instructs apps to use dark mode. Dark mode being use as a short hand - pretty much all "standard" controls used to have colors and font size defined. So if an application wants to draw text - it'd use the text area background and color, likewise for buttons. Being replaced with a single boolean configuration option is just a lazy downgrade. Also I don't quite see it as an OS func…

The fact remains there was no system setting for dark mode before Win 10 that apps could use to ask “does this user prefer dark mode”. Now it exists in windows as well as iOS, MacOs etc so its a pretty established standard by now to have that as a Boolean system wide (and that system apps follow it while third party apps can query it of course). Even if dx12 is an arbitrary restriction to only work in w10 that’s besi…

there was no system setting for dark mode before Win 10 that apps could use to ask “does this user prefer dark mode”

There was no need for apps to ask that. Previously, apps would just say "draw this dialog box in the user's preferred color scheme" and it would work fine. The only reason this dark mode hint is necessary is because too many apps started ignoring the Windows system color scheme and doing their own thing.

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

#577

Post by muffinman26 » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 6:11 PM UTC

throw8383833jj wrote: post #548

TheBozzCL wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, data collection has been completely normalized. I've been thinking about buying a new car, but I'm very aware of how much tracking/telematics they include nowadays... so I decided to search "$manufacturer disable telematics". Every single thread I found was full of people saying variants of "Why do you even want to do that lol" and "Looks like somebody is doing something illegal". Every time I see stuff like t…

i get the having control of your data part (at least for address, name, social sec #, phone number and email - those are really important). but i could care less if an algorithm knows i like elvis presely or what my taste in food is, etc. but i don't understand how personalized ads are harmful. if you don't like the product, just don't buy it? what am i missing? personally, i only buy products that I really want or r…

Taste in food, the supplements you take, and things like whether you like Elvis Presely, can absolutely be used to out you in ways that you may not want.

The famous example I remember from growing up was a teen girl whose parents found out she was pregnant from a personalized (mailed) Target ad: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ... . There seem to be some skepticism in later articles that this is actually how her parents found out, but only because she told them first. They could have found out from the ad.

https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/big.2017.0074 is a more detailed study of how Facebook likes can out people. It looks like the "cloaking" solution that the authors propose actually makes the model more accurate. From the article "false-positive inferences are significantly easier to cloak than true-positive inferences".

If you're the only one who knows what ads you see, that might still be okay, but if a platform can make these kinds of inferences to show you ads, they can use the same data in other ways. At the very least, they might leak this information to other users by recommending people you may know, etc. You might also reveal what kind of personal ads you get if you ever browse the web someplace where other people can glance at your screen.

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

#578

Post by stavros » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 6:12 PM UTC

the_mitsuhiko wrote: post #434

nonethewiser wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate? That's not how the article makes it sound. > The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has instructed the Irish data regulator, where Meta’s European headquarters are located, to impose a permanent ban on Meta’s use of behavioural advertising within two weeks. The EDPB states that its decision is an urgent binding instruction to enforce the ban across the EEA. Is the same happening at the newspaper…

> Is the same happening at the newspapers? You can look at the cases that noyb is fighting in court and you can see that plenty of them go against newspapers.

Also, please add a recurring donation to the NOYB, it's doing excellent work.

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

#579

Post by digging » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 6:13 PM UTC

nvm0n2 wrote: post #491

digging wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and I, and probably a few others here on HN, are slowly being sifted into a parallel "unsocial" world, I fear. It's genuinely disgusting to see the kind of personal data we're expected to pass out by the truckload for every little digital trinket and feature, let alone entire facets of society such as dating apps.

It's a dating site. The whole idea is that you upload all kinds of personal details so they can match you with a life partner. What exactly does a privacy-focused dating site look like?

This question confuses me and I'm not sure we have the same understanding of digital privacy at all.

I'm not talking about the information they ask me to provide. That's a drop in the bucket and is also under my control to disclose or not. I'm talking about all the other shit apps hoover up without permission.

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

#580

Post by digging » Thu, Nov 02, 2023, 6:14 PM UTC

hn72774 wrote: post #468

digging wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and I, and probably a few others here on HN, are slowly being sifted into a parallel "unsocial" world, I fear. It's genuinely disgusting to see the kind of personal data we're expected to pass out by the truckload for every little digital trinket and feature, let alone entire facets of society such as dating apps.

I'm now feeling like social only exists in real life, not online. We were sold an illusion of connectedness when we were in fact the product being sold. Good marketing. We were told what we wanted to hear.

In-person social interaction still kicks ass, yes. I use "unsocial" sarcastically.