Privacy
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
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- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
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- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
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It seems like this might break the GDPR rules for consent:
Any element of inappropriate pressure or influence which could affect the outcome of that choice renders the consent invalid.
https://gdpr-info.eu/issues/consent/
or if the performance of a contract, including the provision of a service, is dependent on the consent despite such consent not being necessary for such performance.
https://gdpr-info.eu/recitals/no-43/
I’m not a lawyer though, so maybe a legal expert can chime in.
edit: the jury is still out it seems:
https://techcrunch.com/2023/10/03/meta-subscription-vs-consent/
I think you'd have a hard time legally saying that they have to provide a service to users when that service is paid for by selling access to users via advertising, even if the user refuses to allow that access. It would probably qualify as "necessary for such performance".
Having the extra option to pay to remove ads (while I think this price is ridiculously excessive) is a pretty reasonable compromise. Although it also feels kinda icky in the sense that it means you're essentially turning privacy into a privilege for the wealthy. So I dunno, it's a tricky issue.
I agree, but it's not like using Meta is mandatory. You can decide not to use their services.
This point gets tricky once things become ubiquitous enough. If I did decide not to use their services (specifically Messenger), I'd be cutting myself off from communicating with 90% of my family, unfortunately. So yeah, it's a choice that can be made... But how much of a choice is it, in practice?
Not easy, I agree.
I've been without any Meta services for 2 years already. In my experience, people have been more understanding regarding that than I initially imagined.
I believe that the choice can be made so I did. I still think most people can. That doesn't mean I don't respect the reasons anyone might have to stay.
I just strongly disagree that people don't have a choice.
just because you’re not using their service doesn’t mean they aren’t using your shadow profile
Indeed. I can't know for sure. But the GDPR is supposed to make that illegal.
That's a different conversation.
Necessary for performance of such service is like needing your address to ship you food or your identity data to connect you with individuals seeking to employ you. EG the info is necessary and relevant to the performance of the actual task at hand not I need all your data so I can sell it to make money. The alternative is so expansive that it would automatically authorize all possible data collection which is obviously not the intent of the law.
Techcrunch article is misunderstanding the meaning of freely given. It means not under duress and with full understanding. Paying for a service categorically doesnt contradict that.
However the odds of facebook explaining in plain english the egregious privacy breaches they do is unlikely so there's prob a get out there anyway.
Can't see how it breaches consent unless, as above they don't explain what they're doing to gather info for "personalised" ads.
Am lawyer, not gdpr /EU specialist though.
Of course, that just means you don’t see ads on Instagram/Facebook. They still collect your data, aggregate it and trade it with data brokers, so the ads you see elsewhere (not to mention prices you’re offered) will become more accurate. In fact, it’s not unlikely that the behavioural data of people who pay to opt out of being spammed with ads will be more valuable to data brokers.
Also, for those who don’t pay, the ads will get more frequent and annoying to induce them to pay. (See also: Spotify)
Anyone with more than a single brain cell should move to federated/decentralized platforms with a "Don't pay but still have more rights than a Facebook user" approach
network effect – easy when it’s just you – but then you need to convince all your friends and family to switch over as well – and they’re not interested because it would mean convincing all their friends and family too … best you can hope for is a trust thermocline, a catastrophic event that’s more likely to leave millions of Facebook users floundering in anger than in curiosity at alternatives …
The approach I took is organize my contacts into three categories The people that I talk to on a daily basis, people that I occasionally talk to, and people who I rarely ever talk to. For the first group (less than 10 for me), mostly close friends and families, I just bullied them to use an alternative platform like Signal until they caved in. For the second group, I recommend Signal to them but also left them with my phone number so they can text me if needed. For the third group I did nothing. Then I proceeded to delete FB Messenger off all my devices. I still log in to the web version maybe once per month to check if anyone from the third group needs to reach me or if there's any group events going on. I did not fully get off FB but I ended up reducing 99% of my usage and 100% of the garbage in app and location tracking. To me this is good enough
Hmm, never thought of that. I guess the reddit api fiasco was a catastrophic event.
Dude you'd be surprised the amount of dumb mofos walking around you. I am 100% sure there will be some losers willing to pay that amount to use Facebook.
This price is absurd, sure. Even if I trusted Meta, there's no way I'm paying that.
Having said that, they can charge whatever they want for the service. As company, their prices are up them.
I don't get why you (no OP specifically, but in general) put it as if you must pay or give up your rights. We can just not use Meta, as many of us already been doing.
GDPR should be there to protect and enforce informed consent. Not to remove people's ability to decide.
Why sholuld we regulate Meta's prices and not whatever other suscription service exists out there?
I haven't used anything Meta-related in almost 10 years and my life has failed to disintegrate. It's actually been lovely.
As absurd as the price may seem, that is actually about how much money they make from selling user data. Of course, given their track record I don't feel inclined to trust this "pinkey promise" of not selling the data in some form anyways.
Even if you do not have a Facebook account, you are still being tracked through Ghost Profiles.
So no, you can not "just not use Meta".
They are so ingrained in the internet, that you can not get away, no matter hard you try.
You can alleviate this by using a VPN, configure you browser to minimize fingerprinting and use NoScript which allows you to block their trackers on third party websites.
Do they forgot about the meaning of the world "RIGHTS"? Doesn't feel very legal to lock users rights behind a paywall.
The thing is, using Facebook isn’t a right. They can charge for whatever, whenever, however they want. You agree to this when you sign up/access the site. You have the choice not to use it.
That’s what gets me with these comments/complaints. (Not trying to be mean). You don’t have to use facebook/Twitter/instagram etc. And the fact that people keep using these kinds of websites is beyond me, especially when they try to pull this kind of bs.
Facebook and Instagram, sure. But plenty of people are more or less forced to keep WhatsApp either because of people they want to be able to message that refuse to use anything else, or perhaps even because they need to be in some WhatsApp groups e. g. for work.
Communication platforms aren't like web browsers or operating systems where you can switch at will to whatever else works for you, you're more or less reliant on everyone you know also making the switch.
Exactly. Not to mention that, even if you don’t use Facebook, instagram, or WhatsApp, your data will still be hoovered up by Meta because someone who has your contact saved in your phone will inevitably allow one of those apps to see all your contacts.
Still doesn’t make it a right just because you feel forced into it lol. And yes, there are other alternatives out there, they just might not be very popular…
So it's time for our EU politicians to step up then....
Hey, US, where are you in this? We need you guys to get on board with the right to privacy...
HAHAHAHA
...we can't even get corporate money out of campaign finances...
US government here, we buy the data from parties like Meta to save on the costs of surveillance and to get around laws that prevent us from spying on citizens. It's not in our interest to legislate restrictions
I feel like there is a balance to this.
- I hate all the stuff Facebook/Meta has done, but a service from a for-profit company will have a cost.
- At the same time, if you make the cost so excessive that no one will actually go for it, it's not really an alternative and rather a loophole for the law.
What makes more sense is to set the price point around equal to the amount made / user. I REALLY doubt that they are making $168 from each person per year.
I don't have the data with me, but would a quick and dirty total_revenue/total_users give a good estimate? Assuming total_revenue doesn't include other products like devices
in 2022, they made US$113bn from ads. They have approx 3bn users so thats about US$38 per user per year.
No one is saying they shouldn’t be allowed to run ads. But that they should be allowed to run highly specific and targeted ads is not by any means a forgone conclusion.
Television, newspapers, ads out in the “wild” and whatnot. All manage without individualizing ads. And Facebook could as well. But it’s more profitable to say to hell with our users privacy, let’s individualize the shit out of those ads.
That’s the problem.
The company:
- We can provide you a free for you service paid by advertising.
Users:
- No, I want privacy.
The company:
- Ok, paid service then.
Users:
- ...
I would feel a lot better about it if the price was anything close to how much they actually make from people's data. Something like $30 per year according to Facebook themselves, in 2019.
But yeah, the notion that people should be entitled to all these online services completely free of charge while also not allowing it to be paid for through advertising is ludicrous.
You could have advertising without creepy tracking surveillance. Contextual ads, based only on the content of the current page and nothing else. Still relevant, still makes money
I don’t mind paying a fair fee for online services, if that means I get some/more privacy, because of no/less/non-tracking ads. I have a few donations set up for some services that I use regularly. I also made a paid account on some commercial services „just because they’re ad free“ even if their free tier would suffice for my usage.
But how are those ads gonna pay them ~16€/month/user on these services? It just to deter people from using this option. Heck I can get a decent vServer and self host several services for that price! No way Meta pays/earns that much per user!
I use adblocking software to block surveillance by ad networks, which is needed for security. I would have no problem with a website hosting ads that were more like television ads that were just hosted locally and didn't have user tracking - but Meta aren't offering that option. So while it might be ludicrous to expect online service free of charge without advertising, it's not ludicrous to expect/demand it without spyware.
The problem in this has never been (at any point) advertising.
Advertising is problematic too but not because of privacy issues.
Imagine you would need to pay for your right to protest or free speech as an example. This is brutal.