this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2023

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Privacy

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188

Meta May Be Infringing on GDPR With Their New Paid-For Ad-Free Model (tutanota.com)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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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[–] [email protected] 54 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Fine the fuck out of them! 3% annual revenue per day of violation. That's the penalty. Hit them hard! Fucking fuckface fuckers!

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You mean 30%, right?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (2 children)

GDPR caps out at 4% of global turnover. Which is still a monumental amount of money.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

A monumental amount, or a tiny tax if the abuse doubles their profit...

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The profit they'd need to make off EU users would need to increase by over $4.66 billion to make a 4% fine on of global revenue.

Even if every single person in the EU (including babies and anyone who doesn't have a meta account) took up the paid tier it wouldn't offset a 4% fine on global revenue. They'd need it make $10 profit extra per person per month. Their price is €10 (just over 10 USD) a month. Subtract from that 20% tax and another let's say 5% for card handling fees and their general costs gives them €7.50. The you need to subtract from that what they were making off users before as we're looking at increase.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

20% of their revenue comes from the EU, almost all of it from ads. I'd argue that complying with the law would cost them more than a quarter of the EU ads revenue, without affecting their costs much -> that'd be 5% of global revenue. Breaking the law still pays.

Also, how do you conclude that 448 million people paying 90 EUR per year, for a total of 40 billion EUR, wouldn't offset a 4.66 billion USD fine?

If the fine was 4% of global revenue every month, sure. So far it looks like it'd be every 3-5 years though...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

If the fine was 4% of global revenue every month, sure

Lol oh yeah, good point.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 11 months ago

Wow, I can't believe our regulators put in such a dumb limit into this otherwise awesome regulation

[+] [email protected] -41 points 11 months ago (5 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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:

What about all the tracking that Meta do on non-Meta sites?
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.
The pricing Meta are going to charge is clearly meant to deter people from taking the ad-free model up.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months 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.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I don’t see how this is a problem.

The first problem is that logic may go against the GDPR. The second problem is that by having this plan they're essentially confirming they don't other user privacy.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Your response tickles my brain. Thank you.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

That's...basically what I said.