Platforms should not confront users with 'binary choice' over personal data use

The EU’s Data Protection Board (EDPB) has told large online platforms they should not offer users a binary choice between paying for a service and consenting to their personal data being used to provide targeted advertising.

In October last year, the social media giant said it would be possible to pay Meta to stop Instagram or Facebook feeds of personalized ads and prevent it from using personal data for marketing for users in the EU, EEA, or Switzerland. Meta then announced a subscription model of €9.99/month on the web or €12.99/month on iOS and Android for users who did not want their personal data used for targeted advertising.

At the time, Felix Mikolasch, data protection lawyer at noyb, said: “EU law requires that consent is the genuine free will of the user. Contrary to this law, Meta charges a ‘privacy fee’ of up to €250 per year if anyone dares to exercise their fundamental right to data protection.”

  • @designated_fridgeEnglish
    25•8 months ago

    I was close to it. I’m an advocate for paying for services I use. We’re way too used to getting everything for free and we should be willing to pay for services we appreciate.

    Which made me realise that Facebook especially I don’t appreciate. So I quit instead. It had value to me once but those times are long gone.

    • @essteeyouEnglish
      12•8 months ago

      Not aimed at the person I’m replying to specifically, but SUPPORT YOUR LEMMY INSTANCE. :-)

    • @[email protected]English
      11•8 months ago

      What bugged me and ultimately drove me to leave Instagram was the wording. In the prompt, they said something along the lines of “we will not use your data for advertising”. And I thought, wtf, I don’t want you to collect my data in the first place.

      • @[email protected]English
        9•8 months ago

        I read it as “no, we won’t use your data for advertising, but collect it anyways. If you ever dare to stop paying, we’ll retroactively process this data, too”

        • @[email protected]English
          6•8 months ago

          Therein lies the uselessness of the subscription. It doesn’t guarantee privacy, only that they won’t abuse it while your subscription is active.

    • @cosmicrookieEnglish
      7•8 months ago

      It had value to me too. I lost a lot of my online social life due to it. I honestly also considered paying but not the ridiculously high price that they were asking. Further more, paying would not stop them from tracking me and it would still have them show me recommended content. Its only the actual ads that you get rid of, but you’d still be seeing recommended commercial content from pages that META thinks suit your purchasing pattern.

    • nickwitha_k (he/him)English
      2•8 months ago

      I was close to it. I’m an advocate for paying for services I use.

      Agreed.

      We’re way too used to getting everything for free and we should be willing to pay for services we appreciate.

      I’d argue that this is partly due to the continued decrease in real wealth experienced by a large amount of the population. Companies want to keep making more profits when people have less relative wealth. So, the data harvesting is making up for that, making it just that much worse for the lot of us.