Meta being fined $100k a day for personalized ads in Norway

SELECTstarFROMreddit@sh.itjust.works to Technology@lemmy.world – 1042 points –
Meta's behavioral ads banned in Norway on Facebook and Instagram
techcrunch.com
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From the linked techcrunch article:

will face fines of up to one million NOK (~$100k) per day.
unless it obtains users’ consent to the processing

From the order itself:

The order applies from 4 August 2023
we may decide to impose a coercive fine of up to NOK 1 000 000 (one million) per day

Misleading title.

unless it obtains users’ consent to the processing

"Do you consent to the processing?"

'No, I do not consent'

[Account Suspended]

"Wait, I CONSENT! Please, take all my data! Take all the data of my entire family and everyone I've ever associated with online! ANYTHING but suspend the account. PLEASE!"

'Thank you for your patronage.'

It's going to be closer to an E-mail saying "We are informing you that we have updated our privacy policy." which nobody is going to read. And the change is going to be an added line of "With continuation of usage of our products and services in the Norway region you give meta the right to collect and processes your information for marketing purposes.". Which also nobody is going to read. Voila, plausible consent.

For what it's worth, a lot of countries with decent privacy laws are looking at closing that stupid loophole by requiring "affirmative consent" whenever something changes to the detriment of the consumer (i.e., more data, wider scope, etc.), meaning the companies would have to require the user to take some action to affirm they consent.

Those same proposals also have provisions prohibiting account suspension / blocking for not consenting. I.e., you can say "no" and continue to use the service exactly as before, though, newer features may be blocked.

Its going to be the same devious bull that all the websites are pulling with accepting cookies. You could either press "no" on every single page all the time or press "yes" once and be done with it. Most people in their 20s and 30s are trained on years of finding the real play or download button on shady streaming websites and we still struggle. I can't imagine how older, less tech savy folk are doing or kids with the attention span equal to the lifetime of a 10w lamp hooked to a nuclear reactor. (I'm not trying to talk anybody down, just using a hyperbolic statement)

As long "explicit opt-in" isn't the standard, it's going to be a struggle. I should go out of my way to give them my data and not make sure that they don't just take it.

I would just love to see a political party answering the corporate statement "But we can't make money if we don't sell ads" with "Should have been a real business then, well, sucks to be you.".

A real business like TV, radio, newspapers, comics, magazines, and every professional sports team?

Yes, exactly like one of those.

Imagine the memes from the New Zuck Times, Warner Zuck Studios or 105.35 Zuck FM.