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submitted 2 years ago by leraje to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

Recently a European Court has judged that Meta's way of collecting and using people's data in Europe has been in violation of privacy regulations between 2018 and 2023. Now Meta announced an option of Facebook and Instagram without personalized ads for 120 euros per year. European users would have the option to pay or agree to personalized ads. But is your right to privacy for sale? Let's find out!

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[-] Situated6583@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 years ago

Well... Meta isn't a charity so they need to have a monetization model. If something is free then you are the product. Is 120 euros not worth your privacy? If the answer is "no" then your choice is to accept the ads or not to use the platform. I don't see how this is a problem.

[-] leraje 44 points 2 years ago

So, that blog post is by Tutanota who, as we're all aware, also offer a paid-for product. But there's a lot of difference between a paid-for product that will only respect your privacy if you pay for it (and even that is questionable) and a paid-for product that just does respect your privacy, even on their free tier.

And, as others have said, Meta have made little to no mention of several things about this paid-for model:

  1. What about all the tracking that Meta do on non-Meta sites?
  2. On Meta sites, there's very little mention of them not tracking you anymore - they're just saying (as far as I can see) that they're not going to serve you personalised ads anymore.
  3. The pricing Meta are going to charge is clearly meant to deter people from taking the ad-free model up.
[-] jackpot@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

point 3 is actually irrelevent unless this is done for propaganda reasons (highly likely though). theres no reason they wouldnt want to make a large amount of money and offering a choice that wasnt there before isnt a scenario where we're somehow worse off - at the worse we're the same

[-] leraje 1 points 2 years ago

Is it really a choice though if you want to be private but you can't afford 13 euros a month?

It's not the fact they're charging that's the issue, it's the fact they're charging such a massive amount of money.

[-] RQG@lemmy.world 11 points 2 years ago

Meta is Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp right? Some people would argue it could harm your social life to not be on those, depending on your social circle of course. Now if it becomes lose friends or pay or lose privacy, this might not be an actual choice but a one made for you.

The other problem is when legislation makes privacy a right, you can't then have a company sell it to you. That's like a company charging you to vote because all voting booths happen to be standing in their buildings.

[-] Spaghetti_Hitchens@kbin.social 2 points 2 years ago

Your response tickles my brain. Thank you.

[-] AnonTwo@kbin.social 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I might be wrong, but I think GDPR means in this scenario if you won't pay, you aren't consenting to the ads. Meta by GDPR standards should be blocking you, not forcing ads on you.

They can't create a implicit permission for it.

[-] ShortN0te@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

It does not have to be implicit. Just redirect to a page where you either have to accept or get logged out.

[-] AnonTwo@kbin.social 7 points 2 years ago

That's...basically what I said.

this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023
204 points (100.0% liked)

Privacy

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