EU: Meta Cannot Rely On 'Pay Or Okay' (europa.eu) 108
The EU's European Data Protection Board oversees its privacy-protecting GDPR policies.
Earlier this week, TechCrunch reported that nearly two dozen civil society groups and nonprofits wrote the Board an open letter "urging it not to endorse a strategy used by Meta that they say is intended to bypass the EU's privacy protections for commercial gain."
Meta's strategy is sometimes called "Pay or Okay," writes long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo : Meta offers users a choice: "consent" to tracking, or pay over €250/year to use its sites without invasive monetization of personal data.
Meta prefers the phrase "subsccription for no ads," and told TechCrunch it makes them compliant with EU laws: A raft of complaints have been filed against Meta's implementation of the pay-or-consent tactic since it launched the "no ads" subscription offer last fall. Additionally, in a notable step last month, the European Union opened a formal investigation into Meta's tactic, seeking to find whether it breaches obligations that apply to Facebook and Instagram under the competition-focused Digital Markets Act. That probe remains ongoing.
The letter to the Board called for "robust protections that prioritize data subjects' agency and control over their information." And Wednesday the board issued its first decision:
"[I]n most cases, it will not be possible for [social media services] to comply with the requirements for valid consent, if they confront users only with a choice between consenting to processing of personal data for behavioural advertising purposes and paying a fee." The EDPB considers that offering only a paid alternative to services which involve the processing of personal data for behavioural advertising purposes should not be the default way forward for controllers. When developing alternatives, large online platforms should consider providing individuals with an 'equivalent alternative' that does not entail the payment of a fee. If controllers do opt to charge a fee for access to the 'equivalent alternative', they should give significant consideration to offering an additional alternative. This free alternative should be without behavioural advertising, e.g. with a form of advertising involving the processing of less or no personal data.
EDPB Chair, Anu Talus added: "Controllers should take care at all times to avoid transforming the fundamental right to data protection into a feature that individuals have to pay to enjoy."
Earlier this week, TechCrunch reported that nearly two dozen civil society groups and nonprofits wrote the Board an open letter "urging it not to endorse a strategy used by Meta that they say is intended to bypass the EU's privacy protections for commercial gain."
Meta's strategy is sometimes called "Pay or Okay," writes long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo : Meta offers users a choice: "consent" to tracking, or pay over €250/year to use its sites without invasive monetization of personal data.
Meta prefers the phrase "subsccription for no ads," and told TechCrunch it makes them compliant with EU laws: A raft of complaints have been filed against Meta's implementation of the pay-or-consent tactic since it launched the "no ads" subscription offer last fall. Additionally, in a notable step last month, the European Union opened a formal investigation into Meta's tactic, seeking to find whether it breaches obligations that apply to Facebook and Instagram under the competition-focused Digital Markets Act. That probe remains ongoing.
The letter to the Board called for "robust protections that prioritize data subjects' agency and control over their information." And Wednesday the board issued its first decision:
"[I]n most cases, it will not be possible for [social media services] to comply with the requirements for valid consent, if they confront users only with a choice between consenting to processing of personal data for behavioural advertising purposes and paying a fee." The EDPB considers that offering only a paid alternative to services which involve the processing of personal data for behavioural advertising purposes should not be the default way forward for controllers. When developing alternatives, large online platforms should consider providing individuals with an 'equivalent alternative' that does not entail the payment of a fee. If controllers do opt to charge a fee for access to the 'equivalent alternative', they should give significant consideration to offering an additional alternative. This free alternative should be without behavioural advertising, e.g. with a form of advertising involving the processing of less or no personal data.
EDPB Chair, Anu Talus added: "Controllers should take care at all times to avoid transforming the fundamental right to data protection into a feature that individuals have to pay to enjoy."
Implications (Score:1)
It would be interesting to know what this decision means for YouTube.
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That they won't follow Facebook's example? I think youtube already complies with opt-in privacy regulations.
The problem is not with the display of ads but on how your personal data is used.
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Youtube might love this since Youtube Premium is less money ($168/yr) and I bet they could make a case that every Youtube user costs way more in bandwidth and infrastructure than the typical Facebook user.
Re: Implications (Score:2)
But YouTube doesn't have an unwanted metaverse to build.
Re: Implications (Score:2)
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The market is already oversaturated. Besides, whenever competitors come along, fecebook tends to rip off whatever features it has rendering the competitor's product moot given it doesn't have anywhere near the reach the former has, meaning few people will bother. In various lawsuits, emails from zuckerfuck have surfaced where he specifically admits to doing it for the express purpose of killing off competitors. First he tries a buyout, then when they don't sell he does that. Same shit apple does (though the
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Exactly, nobody has been able to muster up a competitor (even Meta) to Twitter/X even with it's turmoil, If the network effect is working so strongly there I imagine it's even more for Facebook who also have a lot more resources at their disposal.
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It would be interesting to know what this decision means for YouTube.
None. Youtube do not offer you a lack of tracking for payment. They offer you a lack of ads (among other things), those are two very different things. Meta's product is one that removes tracking, tracking is not allowed to be conditional on payment and actually should be optional under the GDPR.
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I don't need an account to use youtube and I can fairly easily configure my browser and hide my Internet presence such that all tracking-tech youtube tries on me is fooled sufficient that it effectively can't do this anymore. I do need an account to use Facebook. Therefor, I can't use Facebook without being tracked.
Meanwhile, in my country Facebook was forbidden to track me without account. See ie.: https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
Differently put, Youtube and Facebook are completely different. The moment Y
It'd be interesting to see (Score:2)
If a site like Facebook with such a massive userbase could turn a profit on late 90's style dumb banner ads. No crazy tracking, just first party images serving links to other sites and getting paid for clickthrough's and affiliate orders.
Also I would be interested to see how much money-per-user Facebook generates from user data, just curious where that $20 a month price is calculated and whether that is a "bad faith" price or not.
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Also I would be interested to see how much money-per-user Facebook generates from user data
Indeed that would be interesting
Re:It'd be interesting to see (Score:5, Insightful)
How sad it would be - imagine that $20/user is their monthly gross per user. That means an average user is spending enough money as a result of targeted advertising that companies are willing to pay that much per person to either directly serve them ads (or propaganda) or access their data. Meaning that $20/user would be the expense and presumably profits would be higher than that.
I suspect the value per customer is much, much less than that.
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Agree, I feel like at 20 it's a price just low enough to pass muster but high enough that 90% of people will simply not pay and those that do are giving Meta like a 200% profit margin.
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It's worth $20/month to Facebook. That does not mean the advertisers are recovering their costs. If you read up on the blogs from people on that end who buy Google, Facebook, etc ads, you'll see a lot of stories about how they spent a ton of money on ads and saw no change in viewership or revenue and then zeroed their spend and again saw no change.
The content sites making money are the ones that are directly pointed at from either being on first page of Google or by other users posting links on Facebook,
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Yup. I was on IG after the FBization. I posted acrylic paintings, mostly. I got advertisements for mostly Tractors, Heavy heavy equipment like the type of excavators you'd use for digging
The whole supposed point that with the detailed demographic
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Artist acrylic paints are made from petroleum products.
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I actually kept notes when I began noticing the pattern. Its quite hard to screenshot everything
Re: It'd be interesting to see (Score:2)
I downloaded my Facebook data once. They couldn't even get my gender right. Lol
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I am actually pretty cool with them being so screwed up that given the info about where I went to High School, where I went to College, and who my friends are ( they mostly live in one state, which is where I came from), they still get it wrong.
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Why would anyone want to pay to advertise to people who overwhelmingly aren't interested in their ads, instead of paying someone else where they know ads are targeted at people who would be interested?
This is the very reason why "general advertising" is shrinking every year, while targeted advertising is growing. Ad buyers don't want the former, they want the latter.
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Well, yeah, isn't that what we are talking about here? That's the conundrum. People want to use site and people want privacy but site costs money and advertising without privacy violations doesn't make money.
If users aren't willing to pay for the site, we are at an impasse if general advertising doesn't work anymore.
If we want a privacy focused world then it's one with a lot of paywalls.
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You cannot trust greed to do what is best for society. Therefore, you have to make the most destructive behaviors a complete loss, for them to avoid it of their own will.
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Problem being that overwhelming majority of people hold the completely opposite view from you on targeted advertising being "destructive behaviour to society".
Heck, I'm in the "always find the settings to turn targeted advertising off", and even I disagree with you.
The goal of legislation is not to stop targeted advertising. It's to regulate the worst excesses of it, while specifically allowing it. Society doesn't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
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If a site like Facebook with such a massive userbase could turn a profit on late 90's style dumb banner ads. No crazy tracking, just first party images serving links to other sites and getting paid for clickthrough's and affiliate orders.
At a first guess: It probably could. With careful tuning of bid prices, my guess is that non-targeted (or at least non-user-data-targeted - e.g. "you're on Sports Illustrated, you're probably interested in a special offer off ESPN") ads could turn a profit. But they could turn _more_ profit if targeted, and a publicly traded company would be under irresistible pressure to exploit that.
Also I would be interested to see how much money-per-user Facebook generates from user data, just curious where that $20 a month price is calculated and whether that is a "bad faith" price or not.
Facebook doesn't have to price their "get out of advertising jail" card to match the lost revenue - they can include whateve
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It is calculated based on what they expect customer are willing to pay. That is how ALL prices are set on the market. Facebook's price is in the same ballpark as streaming TV service, cell phone subscription, newspaper etc.
https://www.investopedia.com/t... [investopedia.com]
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Racket notwithstanding, would you trust Facebook? (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook asks you to pay them not to abuse you. If that's not a Mafia-style protection racket, I don't know what is.
But besides that, even if you do pay, how can you trust Facebook not to put you under surveillance, invade your privacy and monetize your data anyway? The one thing Facebook has proven again and again over the years is that they're not to be trusted in any way, and it's not like an independent body will ensure they're true to their word.
All you'll see if you pay up is the outward appearance that Facebook is not invading your privacy. Whether it's true or it's just theater... I know what my money is on.
Re:Racket notwithstanding, would you trust Faceboo (Score:4, Insightful)
Facebook asks you to pay them not to abuse you. If that's not a Mafia-style protection racket, I don't know what is.
In principle I would disagree and say that if you want to be a "customer" you should pay for the service, otherwise you'll be the "product" and selling your data will be fair game.
But i have to agree with you that Facebook has broken the trust and gone too far invading people's privacy.
Re:Racket notwithstanding, would you trust Faceboo (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah I don't get this whole "you have a right to social media" crap that people like to imply. Believe me, I despise fecebook, but asking anybody to provide services for nothing, or worse yet, the idea that "if the internet company uses my data it must pay me money even though it already provides something I value dearly in exchange" is just bonkers.
But...what if the "ok" side of "pay or ok" mandates that users are ok to consent, but in exchange fecebook has to disclose, in detail, everything their data was used for, who exactly it was sold to, and indefinitely recursively, what the buyer used it for, who they sold to, etc. And of course, fecebook is liable for any data brokers they sell to failing to disclose anything such as who it was sold to, data breaches, etc.
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The first step of any transaction is convincing the other party that it's worth your asking price. As of this post, facebook has failed in that step. It's up to facebook to either offe
Re: Racket notwithstanding, would you trust Facebo (Score:2)
Define "value dearly." For facebook that's apparently â250/year. (That's Euros not US dollars. As of this post, it would be ~$266.52/year in US dollars, as the currency conversion favors the Euro at the moment.) Given that people are complaining, it's obvious that they don't accept that valuation of facebook's services.
This isn't just fecebook, this is anything really. My main comments from that come from seeing slashdot posts back in the earlier days of posts getting +5 insightful moderation because some derp was complaining that Google maps was collecting data from his searches without paying him. Srsly wtf...just stop fucking using it? Not hard.
The first step of any transaction is convincing the other party that it's worth your asking price. As of this post, facebook has failed in that step. It's up to facebook to either offer some supporting reasons for the cost (more like regurgitate BS...) or to change their asking price if they want the sale to go through. They are not entitled to the public's money.
They do that literally every single time you click through EULAs and privacy policies. Right now that's the only standard that the law requires. If you want to change that, chan
Re: Racket notwithstanding, would you trust Facebo (Score:2)
No contractual agreement is above the law. If Facebook's EULA says you have to pay them in human kidneys and the law forbids trading human kidneys, then you will have no trouble accepting the idea that Facebook should either change their business model or go out of business, regardless of consent. Is it so complicated to accept that we need similar protection of privacy?
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Legally, Facebook has to disclose everything the data was used for and who exactly it was sold to anyway. GDPR gives everyone the right to access that information.
If Facebook wants to have a free tier then they can fund it with ads, not data theft. It's not the user's right to get it for free, it's Facebook's obligation to respect privacy even with a free product. They are of course free to withdraw the free tier if they don't think it is profitable enough.
The shear scale of Facebook (Score:2)
Ide
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The answer then is simple. Pay should be the only option for EU customers. Then it's not illegal and it's not extortion, it's just how you fund Facebook in the EU.
Web isn't allowed to use interstitials (Score:2)
Other ad based businesses, e.g. network TV, have managed find without abusing personal data.
Broadcast television has 3-minute ad breaks. Attempting to apply the concept of a 3-minute interstitial (or "ads with countdown") to the web environment would violate the Better Ads Standards [betterads.org] published by the Coalition for Better Ads. Meta Platforms is a member of the Coalition's board.
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You seem to be operating under the misapprehension that paying for a service obviates any chance of you getting monetized. That's patent nonsense.
The modern web run on monetization of everyone who touches a keyboard. Full stop.
Paying on top of that is simply a transaction between you and the site monetizing you - "I'll give you $20 if you won't show me ads". In my mind, that's completely separate from the monetization aspect. Meta's proposal seems to be a weird mixture - "Give me $20, and I won't whore y
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Notably there already are limits on what it can do with information it collects. For example, the deal it struck with EU regulators that allowed it to buy Whatsapp ban if from fusing databases from Whatsapp and the rest of Meta services for purposes of targeted advertising.
It's why residents of EU nations still have their Whatsapp data siloed off within Meta.
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If that's not a Mafia-style protection racket, I don't know what is.
The Mafia doesn't typically just ignore you if you don't want anything to do with them. That's the big difference. You aren't being forced to use Facebook, and anyone who signs up to Facebook is presented with the terms up front. If you were forced, *that* would a Mafia-style protection racket.
And before you say "oh but tracking pixel" the tracking pixel can't be disabled by payment because it is an incredibly dumb and basic means of tracking people around the internet, it can't tell if you're a paying cust
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You are free to not use Facebook at all. Try that with the mafia. Don't be such a socialist, take some responsibility for your life and the choices you make.
Privacy is a human right; it's not for sale (Score:5, Insightful)
Privacy is a human right. I don't see how here in the EU a US company can try to force EU inhabitants to have to pay for their human rights.
I mean it's totally OK if the US wants to enslave its OWN population by letting them pay hard dollars if they want to enjoy a human right like privacy. But here in the EU this is not really considered of this time anymore. So Meta can go sell its nonsense somewhere else.
Meta, there will be plenty of competing services and companies that do follow the EU laws to replace you. So leave. Go away. Fuck off even.
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Isn't it (for sale)???
We trade our privacy for things ALL THE TIME.
If you use Google, or Slashdot, or any other free site, you are trading your privacy for free stuff.
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What is privacy, exactly?
We live in an interconnected world. Anything you do that affects someone else, by definition can't be private. And that covers just about everything you do.
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Privacy is when you keep my activity as it relates to you between us.
When you sell or share my activity with you to a third party with out my active consent and without benefit to my wallet then you have invaded my privacy.
It's not that hard.
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When you sell or share my activity with you to a third party with out my active consent and without benefit to my wallet then you have invaded my privacy.
It's not that hard.
Does Facebook actually sell your personal data to third parties? Or does Facebook only use that data to themselves target ads and content to you (without telling any third party who you are)?
As for the "benefit to my wallet": it's not that hard. The benefit is that you don't have to pay money out of your wallet to receive the services from Facebook.
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I don't use Facebook at all ever for anything yet they still track me across the web and sell ads to me through third parties. Where is my benefit?
And yes when they sell ads to someone based on what they know about me from tracking me all over the net they are sharing my data with third parties. They have enough data on most of us such that it wouldn't be difficult to identify an individual if you really wanted to and even if they sell me in aggregate, FB is still making money off my activity from not bei
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Privacy is a human right. I don't see how here in the EU a US company can try to force EU inhabitants to have to pay for their human rights.
So, you think having a Facebook account and getting their content is a "human right"? What other services from private companies must be supplied for free as a human right? Can you show me the law that demands the "human right to Facebook"?
I think Facebook is just a private, for-profit provider of information services that you can buy a subscription to; alternately you can sell them the rights to your personal data instead paying cash for your subscription.
What is legal for them to do with your data, as wel
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No, but privacy is. Even if Facebook offers a free tier, they still have to respect that right.
If respect for human rights is too much for Facebook, they can withdraw from the market.
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Yes, but Facebook's deal is "your privacy for our services". The entire purpose of many inherent rights is that they allow you to have something that is valuable to trade it for something else that is valuable.
For example, the entire concept of right to property is based around that.
Re: Privacy is a human right; it's not for sale (Score:2)
I would very much be interested to hear what new reason the EU comes up with to make it illegal but excludes all EU businesses for doing the same thing.
Why would there be such a need? If Facebook follows existing EU law then EU is happy with Facebook, it's that simple. For some reason Facebook keeps looking for loopholes instead of following the law. In fairness they are not the only ones, just a very big player. As soon as they give their users the option to not be tracked without it having consequences on the service they receive, the EU will be happy.
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Many more of our inherent rights cannot and should not be sold at any cost — life, liberty, due process of law, free association, that sort of thing. There are limits to any rights, but these cannot be sold or traded lest we revert to slavery.
Take doctors and lawyers for example. To use their services effectively requires sharing a measure of your private information with them. However these professions are legally bound to protect your privacy by not disclosing it to any third parties without your
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Incorrect. Almost all rights can be willingly traded for. Including all rights you list. In fact, you manage to list only one of a handful of very narrowly targeted limits on what cannot be traded away: slavery. You can still perform a lesser trade for your labour that is more limited than slavery, and every human being working on a contract does.
Other examples of trade of rights include:
Right to free association is commonly traded in exclusive clubs and such.
Right to due process of law is commonly traded i
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Privacy is a human right.
But having access to websites and social media isn't. There are actually three choices you're being presented with here, not two. Your choices are to either pay if you don't want them to share your data for targetted ads, use it for free but get targetted ads based on your data or option three if you don't like either of the two, DON'T USE IT.
With goods or services from the private sector that are available if you want it you either pay or you don't get it, there's no automatic god given right to be entit
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I'm sure it's already in the long Terms of Service / EULA document, but who reads those, right?
So perhaps a short clear statement (with a pay option) should be made to EU users when signing up to use facebook
META Inc. Facebook, Messenger, Instagram Services User Agreement:
In exchange for your use of facebook and associated services, you must either:
1) agree that facebook can track your usage of
I see nothing wrong with subscriptions (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish more companies would ditch the ad model and go subscription. I think consumers would figure out real quick what services they want real fast.
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Facebook needs to flip their description of the situation. Make Facebook into a service where everyone pays. Then by allowing add you get billing credits.
That simple restatement solves all of the EU issues. There is no 'right' in the EU to access a commercial service for free. Restating it this way makes it clear that Facebook is a commercial service which needs to be paid for, and then you are given the option of which currency you'd would like to pay with.
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Any form of coercion to agree to non-essential use of data, such as a discount, is not allowed under GDPR. Consent must be freely given, with no exchange.
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In this model FB is a pay service for everyone. Whether you want some billing credits for allowing advertising is up to you.
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"Ad-based service without ads" is different from "Customer-based service". Will not the premium customers still get the ad-focused "maximize engagement" algorithm?
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The problem is they have to be free to get started. Nobody is going to pay to use a social network with nobody else on it. If they start free then users are not happy when the start charging.
Look at Twitter. Despite Musk announcing it several times, they haven't started charging for accounts yet.
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You're a victim of your own propaganda bubble as usual. Paid accounts haven't just been implemented, they have been a resounding success on X.
Because world isn't black and white, and not all accounts are made equal either.
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Musk has said several times that all accounts will have to pay. The latest was last week, a buck to create a new account. It never happens and I doubt it will this time.
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Truly for a communist, stupidity and delusion are indistinguishable. You're so close to the reality here. Your mind, desperately struggling to get out from under the Marxist yoke you enslaved it under generates a sane observation:
"It never happens".
And then you dismiss it anyway in favour of engaging in the most common action of a religious fanatic. Attacking the heretic.
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Statistically, betting that what Musk says is bullshit and won't happen is going to keep you in the black.
You see it a lot with Twitter - he announces something publicly, and then the engineers talk him down in private and it gets quietly dropped, until the next time one of his fans whines to him.
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I think we should celebrate this important day for you. The day you discovered marketing.
It's a true milestone. Most people in Western world hit it by age of 7 or so. How old are you by the way?
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It's still not paid for. And likely never will be. But you can buy a premium account with perks.
Which is a model taken straight from free to play games, that have been doing this for more than a decade. And a model everyone in social media is desperate to copy in some way after twitter demonstrated just how successful that model can be.
Weirdly specific (Score:2)
I've noticed a few EU media websites have now started showing pop-ups giving a choice between allow cookies to continue or pay a fee to continue wi
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More to the point, if they don't collect personally identifiable information, how do they know that you've paid.
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There's a clear exemption in relevant regulation for this sort of a transaction. It requires specific limitations on data usage to be reserved solely for facilitating the service that is being paid for.
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In case others are interested in looking it up: In the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), paying changes it from "consent" basis to "contract" basis.
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It's actually really weird in the way it's interpreted. There was a recent case here in Finland, where a very popular consumer electronics store got fined for a very large sum of money (percentage of yearly revenue that is higher than their yearly profit margin) by a regulator on the basis that they allowed anonymous purchases, but held the data from the purchase beyond immediate fulfilling of the purchase contract.
The store allowed the buyer to get the data, request data deletion, etc. Holding the data was
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Triggered low intelligence china troll is the best china troll.
But you need to go harder.
Privacy Possum (Score:2)
I don't know much about it other than it exists. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-... [mozilla.org]
The era of "free" might be ending. (Score:1)
Cough up 250 (Score:3)
And we promise we won't spy on you. Pinky swear. No, you can't audit it in any way, you have to trust us. You trust Facebook, right?
But at least we now know just how much money your private data really is worth. You're gifting Facebook with 250 bucks every single year.
If that makes you feel like a sucker: That's because you are.
Paying to avoid ads and tracking is fine, but... (Score:3)
..,.how do we know if they are still tracking after we pay?
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You can tell if they are still tracking you if the sun comes up the next morning.
Just ban Facebook already... (Score:3)
So... it's not okay for Facebook to sustain itself in the EU by selling ads. But... it's ALSO not okay for Facebook to sustain itself in the EU by selling subscriptions? That just doesn't add up, no matter what you think about Facebook or the Zuck. Does no one in the EU's government or bureaucracy understand how things get paid for?!?!?
No, I can't believe that there's NO ONE in the EU who understands that with our revenue there is no business. So it's pretty clear that the EU just wants to ban Facebook there. Fine... but why beat around the bush about it with absurd demands like "You must give our citizens unfettered access to your service; but no you may not make any money from them."? All I can really think of that's either a cash grab via fines and whatnot before pulling the trigger and issuing the ban, or they want to ban it without *saying* they're banning it, because... reasons. Either way, it's not a good-faith move.
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it's not okay for Facebook to sustain itself in the EU by selling ads.
It's not okay for Facebook to rely exclusively on ads that are behaviorally targeted. Facebook must offer a choice between ads that are behaviorally targeted and ads that are not behaviorally targeted.
But... it's ALSO not okay for Facebook to sustain itself in the EU by selling subscriptions? That just doesn't add up
It's not okay for Facebook to rely on the Morton's fork of either payment or ads that are behaviorally targeted. Facebook must either offer a choice between ads that are behaviorally targeted and ads that are not behaviorally targeted at the same price or not offer a free service at all.
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What if un-targeted ads don't bring in enough money to justify the provision of services?
Then their business model is defective. Or maybe they waste too much money on services nobody want (Metaverse).
"Inalienable" right (Score:2)
An inalienable right is one that "is not transferable or that is impossible to take away"
It appears that the EU has recognized you right to consent to whatever meta is doing as inalienable.
Not every right to say "no" by withholding consent is an inalienable right. However f-ing is an example of something that is.
You can pay someone so they will let you f- them. But you still need their ongoing affirmative consent the whole time.
If they say stop or they lose the ability to maintain affirmative consent (lik
My suggestion (Score:2)
So if I want adverts and disallowed them, I go into a menu to allow it, the site gets refreshed, and shows me the ads I w
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Or I disallow them and I'm never bothered again.
In which case you get presented with a form in which to enter your payment credentials.
It's a commercial website (Score:2)
At some point people gotta make money. EU has every right to determined how businesses make money from EU citizens. But cutting off every avenue is probably going to backfire, perhaps even isolate Europe's Internet. (I don't know for sure, I'm not trying to be an alarmist. I'm just putting it out there as a thought)
I'd pay... (Score:2)