Facebook Finally Puts a Price on Privacy: It’s $10 a Month

jockyrickyrock@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 228 points –
Facebook Finally Puts a Price on Privacy: It’s $10 a Month
wired.com
36

Just because you're paying $10 a month does not mean that Meta will stop farming your data. Sure, they won't shove you any ads, but they will stockpile data for the day you decide that $10 (it's not really $10.. they will increase this price 2-3 years down the line once they feel they had gathered enough users, the Silicon Valley way) and then pump you with ads that cater you.

Also I'm sure they will sell your data to whoever can pay for it.

They don't directly sell data, nor does Google. They analyze and use that data to sell targeted ad space.

There are data brokers that gather a ton of data and openly sell it, but Facebook isn't one of them. Their customer data and the resulting ability to sell extremely specific ad space is probably their single most valuable; why would the sell it itself when they can sell the access it grants instead?

I think Meta very much wants to sell data.

https://www.natlawreview.com/article/facebook-to-pay-90-million-to-settle-data-privacy-lawsuit "Specifically, the plaintiffs’ alleged that Facebook used cookies and various plug-ins in order to track and save information about its users’ visits to third-party websites and then sold to advertisers."

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/privacy-and-data-security/facebook-in-payment-spat-over-725-million-privacy-settlement "Consumers sued Meta in 2018 after it became public that the British research firm had gained access to the data of at least 87 million Facebook users without their permission in connection with its work for Trump’s campaign."

They sell access to data (i.e., ads) - that is far more lucrative than selling the data itself. Only companies that are bad at tech just sell the data (credit card companies, retail, etc)

Cambridge Analytica was far more stupid - that was them just giving away data for free. Their old Facebook Apps APIs were wide open to collect whatever for free for anyone who would use your app (CA made those "do this fun quiz and invite your friends!" kind of FB games) and the APIs just said "we require you to delete this data when the user is done with the app" with no way to enforce it

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A pay-to-see-no-ads is not the same as pay-for-privacy.

They do point out they won't use your personal info in ads if you pay, by choosing the free option you consent for personalized ads

Doesn't mean they won't collect your info anyways. What has Meta done to prove that they are worthy of our trust? Nothing.

It pretty much makes it clear that they are absolutely going to continue collecting your data -- they just won't use it for ads. They wouldn't have needed to specify that otherwise.

They won't use it to personalise their ads, they'll just sell it to their approved data vendors who all happen to be in the business of personalized ads.

This is paying to not think about a problem, not to solve the problem.

That $10 won't give you any real privacy. They will still collect every bit they can about you.

The $10 will just not give you targeted ads. Most likely, they will still select things for you based on your profile and also sell information from that profile to the real customers.

Bingo. They don't give you targeted ads through their own platform, but the info is for sale for everyone else to do so.

No! It's actually free: Simply stop using Facebook!

You also need your family to not use Facebook (if they ever mention you they will collect that information)

Buts it’s probably not gonna give you any privacy, they’re still harvesting and selling your data, you just don’t see the ads on meta platforms.

This is to appease regulators, it is not a viable solution for their users.

Regulators that seems to have already unformally shoot down the proposal given that it seems to be against the GDPR.

well thats mark zuckerburg for you, but even then your data is still gonna be sold ig

So much for the

"It's free and always will be"

I can never understand how selling one's information isn't considered a form of payment.

This paymemt does not even stop their crappy 'recommended for you' suggested content on user's wall, which is even more annoying than the ads.

Oh in Europe only. Not in the US. The news article should have specified that in the title

Nah, American news also fail to specify "only in the US" every time. So it's kind of refreshing to see the tables flipped for once.

Sure, I'll pay that - as soon as they pay me $15 per month for the data they're stealing from me.

€15 here.

Yeah, not paying even if it's 9.99€

I'd take it at €5 if I used Instagram a lot. The current asking price is too high though, almost like the data is worth so much to them that they put the price tag high enough that it's unreasonable.

I’ll give them a one time payment of $10 to fuck off