Breaking: In decisions just out, Meta is not only on the hook for privacy fines totaling nearly €400 million, but it must also — quickly — find a new legal basis for its sprawling targeted advertising empire. 🧵
https://pro.politico.eu/news/158293
🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/vmanancourt/status/1610652904188174338
Or that the social network is one service, and the ads are another, so the GDPR rules for the social network can presume that ads are not relevant?
That one also seems like a competition policy question.
9/
@daphnehk This is a great thread and it's something that confuses me too about some of the European rulings I've seen come out.
It seems like the rulings boil down to "Internet companies offering any non-paid service in Europe must offer it free of any obligation whatsoever to the people using the service for free."
@DiogoConstantino @daphnehk I'm probably speaking much more broadly than Daphne was, sorry for being confusing there.
Beyond this specific law and case, just seems to me that the collection of EU perspectives on tech in general seems to be "You can offer free services, but you can't ask anything in return from their users"
I can totally understand from a privacy perspective why that's desirable, I'm having a harder time seeing how that's a feasible way to run tech businesses.
And I'm personally happy to just pay a small fee for ad-free, pro-privacy things but I doubt I'm in the majority.
@amuse @DiogoConstantino @daphnehk isn't this a bit like saying:
seems to me that the collection of EU perspectives on tech in general seems to be "you can offer ride sharing services, but you have to treat your full time workers as employees, not independent contractors"
I can totally understand from a labour law and worker rights perspective why that's desirable, I'm having a harder time seeing how that's a feasible way to run a tech business.
@DiogoConstantino @amuse @daphnehk There is obviously a tension between allowing companies to operate without too much of a regulatory burden, and protecting users, but if you take it to the extreme, you could as easily argue that we can't tax CO2 emissions because it makes it too hard to be an oil company, or that we can't require pharma to run clinical trials, because it makes it too hard for them to be profitable.
If a company can't find a legal business model, good riddance I say.
@MechanicalTurk @DiogoConstantino @daphnehk I think it's actually a lot more like the government saying "You can offer ride sharing services, but you can't require the user to enable location sharing to summon the vehicle".
That's technically do-able, but completely changes a major pillar of what the business actually does to operate.
@MechanicalTurk it needs to go from where I want to go, to where I want to get, not to track where I'm.
@amuse they made their choice. Also personalized advertisng is far from being the only form of avdvertising, it's not even the only form of doing advertising for specific audiences.
@daphnehk @MechanicalTurk @DiogoConstantino @joris I appreciate your input!
For me, the question becomes "What is the alternative to take it or leave it basis?"
Like, can FB say "You can have our full service if you consent to tracking, but if you don't you can only have Facebook Lite with videos capped at 360p" ?
If the answer is that FB can provide a lesser service for users who provide less value (to FB) then that seems totally fair.
If the answer is no, FB must provide completely equivalent service to both its money-making users and its money-losing users, then it does still seem like EU is saying "You cannot require users to provide anything at all in exchange for free services" which seems to me like it'd lead, ultimately, to people not offering any free services at all in EU.
Note: I personally loathe Facebook and haven't logged in for a long time, but this is less about defending FB to me and more about thinking through what commerce on the internet looks like under these rules.
@amuse the alternative is to follow the law and change or adjust business model. Both asking for consent and not having personalized advertising (maybe use contextual advertising instead) are definitively viable.
Your proposal/sugestion wouldn't be lawfull because it has nothing to do with the necessity of the user data processing to provide the service.
@tknarr
You're mistaken. Consent can only be requested if it can be meaningful refused without detriment. If the subject feels compeled to consent, the consent is not freely given, and subjects may obviously and easily feel compeled to have the service. It has nothing to do with being before or after.
@DiogoConstantino @tknarr @amuse
It seemed like the lynchpin of DiogoC’s point was “If the subject feels compeled to consent, the consent is not freely given, & subjects may obviously & easily feel compeled to have the service.”
So is this reasoning about contract basis for processing unique to services that are essential or dominant (Facebook, arguably)? If there were 100 social media companies, could one offer targeted ads on a take it/leave it basis?
I scanned the replies. Did a lawyer ever respond?
The social media behavior where people respond to a question for input by “expert”, by starting with “I’m not expert, but in my opinion…” really makes life challenging.
@daphnehk not a lawyer but from a pure consumer perspective I want the eu authorities to be able to insist that monetising my data to provide a service which is not actually connected to or associated with my data is not a legal business.
I don’t expect things for free, I’d expect to have to pay for a non data monetised Facebook and that would then be a take it or leave it choice which I could happily make.
Daphne
Matt Linton 
Diogo Constantino
MechanїcalTurk
Dan Veditz
Todd Knarr
Suzanne Vergnolle
Dr James J Teeth
pschlzbm
Chris Riley
resipiscent
Don Marti
Charles Gillanders
Sam Gross
Walter van Holst