Sucks to be Zuck

The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has extended Norway's ban on Facebook's use of personal data for advertisements across the entire European Union.

European officials have told Ireland's privacy watchdog to impose a ban on Meta's processing of personal data for behavioral advertising throughout the European single market within the next two weeks.

The decision follows a request in September from Norway's Data Protection Authority, Datatilsynet, that the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) extend Norway's countrywide ban on Meta's processing of personal data – via Facebook and Instagram – to the entire European Economic Area (EEA), which includes local non-EU states. This would dump a huge roadblock in the way of Meta's social networking plans.

And so it shall be done: the EDPB today told Ireland's Data Protection Authority (DPA) to roll out that ban across the single market. Ireland because Meta's European base is in Dublin.

"After careful consideration, the EDPB considered it necessary to instruct [the DPA] to impose an EEA-wide processing ban, addressed to Meta [Ireland]," said EDPB Chair Anu Talus in a statement. "Already in December 2022, the EDPB Binding Decisions clarified that [Meta's end-user] contract is not a suitable legal basis for the processing of personal data carried out by Meta for behavioral advertising."

Talus said the DPA found that Meta has failed to comply with orders imposed at the end of 2022. "It is high time for Meta to bring its processing into compliance and to stop unlawful processing," she said.

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A few days ago, Meta debuted a no-ads subscription option for those in EU, EEA and Switzerland, claiming that a recent Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruling "expressly recognized that a subscription model, like the one we are announcing, is a valid form of consent for an ads funded service."

In a statement to The Register, Meta sounds surprised by the EDPB's data collection ban. The ads giant feels that if it asks users for consent, it'll be allowed to keep processing personal info for targeted advertising. How exactly it will get that consent is the issue.

Facebook's idea is that refusing to pay means consent.  To quote Nicholas Pileggi and Martin Scorsese, "F%$# you, pay me."

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Datatilsynet welcomed the EDPB decision, stating that while it has been clear that Meta is breaking the law, the social network continued its data collection anyway.

"Enough is enough," said Tobias Judin, head of Datatilsynet's international section, in a statement. "After more than five years of violations of users' basic privacy protection, the Data Protection Council is now putting its foot down against Meta's lack of respect for the law."

The Norwegian Data Protection Authority also said it "strongly doubts whether Meta's proposed consent solution, which means that those who do not consent to behavior-based marketing must pay a fee, will be legal."

It should be noted here, as I have noted before, Facebook and Google style stalker-type advertising model is largely a scam.

It does not lead to increased sales.  What it does is allow advertisers to dig a moat around their businesses protecting them from new entrants, because these new entrants lack the extensive dossiers accumulated by the incumbents. 

Burn the stalker advertisers to the ground.