422
EU tells Meta it can't paywall privacy
(www.theregister.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
422 points (100.0% liked)
Privacy Guides
16131 readers
27 users here now
In the digital age, protecting your personal information might seem like an impossible task. We’re here to help.
This is a community for sharing news about privacy, posting information about cool privacy tools and services, and getting advice about your privacy journey.
You can subscribe to this community from any Kbin or Lemmy instance:
Check out our website at privacyguides.org before asking your questions here. We've tried answering the common questions and recommendations there!
Want to get involved? The website is open-source on GitHub, and your help would be appreciated!
This community is the "official" Privacy Guides community on Lemmy, which can be verified here. Other "Privacy Guides" communities on other Lemmy servers are not moderated by this team or associated with the website.
Moderation Rules:
- We prefer posting about open-source software whenever possible.
- This is not the place for self-promotion if you are not listed on privacyguides.org. If you want to be listed, make a suggestion on our forum first.
- No soliciting engagement: Don't ask for upvotes, follows, etc.
- Surveys, Fundraising, and Petitions must be pre-approved by the mod team.
- Be civil, no violence, hate speech. Assume people here are posting in good faith.
- Don't repost topics which have already been covered here.
- News posts must be related to privacy and security, and your post title must match the article headline exactly. Do not editorialize titles, you can post your opinions in the post body or a comment.
- Memes/images/video posts that could be summarized as text explanations should not be posted. Infographics and conference talks from reputable sources are acceptable.
- No help vampires: This is not a tech support subreddit, don't abuse our community's willingness to help. Questions related to privacy, security or privacy/security related software and their configurations are acceptable.
- No misinformation: Extraordinary claims must be matched with evidence.
- Do not post about VPNs or cryptocurrencies which are not listed on privacyguides.org. See Rule 2 for info on adding new recommendations to the website.
- General guides or software lists are not permitted. Original sources and research about specific topics are allowed as long as they are high quality and factual. We are not providing a platform for poorly-vetted, out-of-date or conflicting recommendations.
Additional Resources:
- EFF: Surveillance Self-Defense
- Consumer Reports Security Planner
- Jonah Aragon (YouTube)
- r/Privacy
- Big Ass Data Broker Opt-Out List
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I’m all for GDPR and really enjoy its protections, but I don’t understand this one. If facebook says they need €10/mo to provide their services and gives us the choice to either pay that or to pay with targeted ads, then how does that infringe upon our data [Edit: ~~integrity~~ autonomy]? The service seems to be worth something, so the EU cannot expect facebook to just give it out for less, can they? What’s the basis for this?
They can just charge €10/mo like every other company does, for example Netflix. They can't offer it as an alternative to the "freely given consent". It's not freely given if the alternative is to pay to not give this consent.
You're free to not use Facebook.
Also, your argument breaks down because there are plenty of free streaming platforms that use targeted advertising as payment for their services.
If anything, Facebook doing this is surprising because they're making data collection opt-in.
The biggest problem with this approach is basically Facebook saying that you have to pay for a right, meaning, if the law tells you that you can, and should, always have a say if you are followed around or not, you mist have that capability. What Facebook is doing is put a right behind a paywall, which is absurd
If I understand you correctly, you’re making the same argument as !snooggums@midwest.social above, so I’ll copy answer to them here:
That is a completely different issue. On the one hand, meta does collect data on people who do not have an account. This is simply illegal, since that collection is neither necessary nor consented to. The EU should finally put a stop to that.
On the other hand we have the voluntary relationship a user enters with facebook by creating an account. This is what the article is about and what I was referring to in my comment – the “binary choice between paying for a service and consenting to their personal data being used to provide targeted advertising”
Are there any rights you think should supersede contracts? If so, how do you draw the line between rights that do and don’t?
(I’ll answer your question in a comment side-chain, just because you asked.)
Germans have the right to continued wage payments if they need to take care of family members (§616 BGB). However, that right can be voided in the employment contract.
(§618 BGB) essentially states that the work environment must be reasonably safe. This cannot be voided by contract, as is codified in (§619 BGB).
These are just instances. I do not know any general rules for the precedence of contracts over the law or vice versa.
Sorry, but why do you think that (§616 BGB) should be able to be voided by an employment contract?
I’m not sure which meaning of ‘should be able to be voided’ you’re using. Do you mean ‘Why do think it’s legal to void it’ or ‘Why do you think it’s legitimate to be able to void it’?
In the first case: My employment contract does exactly this. It’s become kind of a default clause in contracts. Researching this you’ll find a lot of websites (in German) that say that the clause is ‘abdingbar’ (which I translated as ‘voidable’).
In the second case: I didn’t say I thought it legitimate, and I don’t have a strong opinion on this.
That is beside the point I’m making. Facebook acknowledges the right to privacy by giving you the choice to pay for the service rather than giving up your data. In my view, this should be completely acceptable by the GDPR. No-one is forcing you to sign up to facebook, so you do have a completely free choice to (1) either not give up your data and not use facebook; or (2) not give up your data and pay for the service; or (3) give up your data and pay for the service that way.
This is just about paying to not have ads, not about data collection.