EU Parliament pushes to ban ads targeting health, religion, sexual orientation
politico.eu
politico.eu
Ads for things that have zero applicability to me are a waste of my time, the advertisers time, everyone’s time. We’re not going to ever live in a world without ads and I would far rather they be an actual service to me, presenting me things I actually think are cool and might like to buy.
A well targeted ad can be a net positive to my life. An ad for something I would never use, ever, because it doesn’t apply to me is a net negative.
Except in this case, where it makes no difference at all, because only certain groups are protected.
The governments are the ones out to kill you or otherwise materially destroy your life. Corporations just want you to buy stuff.
All preventing private industry from data collection is prevent useful things like this.
None. Because it’s done anyway, except in an “anonymized” form. But as we all know, lifting that veil is trivial if you have enough data.
And as long as private companies are unable to collect medical data on me and medical confidentiality holds, they won't be able to obtain any such data.
I also certainly don't want some company putting ideas into the heads of my relatives - or my own - about what medicine is appropriate over the advice of medical professionals. The first step would be obtaining data on people's medical condition in the first place, so let's shut it down right there.
They can go directly advertise to doctors who have the required background to actually make an informed decision, but if they trick my gullible grandmother into paying for something that is likely not the optimal treatment, then we have a massive fucking problem.
And that goes for more than just health ads. Most ads are clearly appealing to people emotions instead of rationality: They tell a story of a happy family instead of showing you a fact sheet. They don't exist to "inform" people of their options and help them make a rational decision. If you are going to argue anything else, then I suggest we have a watch party of some randomly selected ads and see whether you can still look me straight in the face, arguing the same, afterwards. Most arguments for the benefits of advertisement are contingent on the idea of the "rational consumer" - as far as I am concerned that ship has sunk and was full of holes to begin with. Even if people were largely qualified to make rational decisions in specialist areas, a sizeable amount likely still wouldn't.
But I don't care as much about people wasting money on some "manscaping" garbage, nose hair trimmer or whatever inferior garbage is currently sold at upmarket prices. So another weasel gets rich? Whatever. It's health where I start to take issue, the weasel grows six legs and becomes something I want to take the boot to.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/ibm-and-quot-death-s-ca...
"IBM, primarily through its German subsidiary, made Hitler's program of Jewish destruction a technologic mission the company pursued with chilling success. IBM Germany, using its own staff and equipment, designed, executed, and supplied the indispensable technologic assistance Hitler's Third Reich needed to accomplish what had never been done before-the automation of human destruction."
Good job, amoral corporations just wanting to sell stuff.
Sure, let's target you with our extreme Church that thinks being gay is an illness, and you too should help to get rid of them. Yes, this happens too right now.
It's about this kind of ad's not your Raid Legends or I don't know become a rich person with 2 hours of work ad's.
Advertising your church regardless of its beliefs seems to follow the basic religious freedom?
There isn’t really a valid argument here.
You can advertise your church but not call to harm other people, this is not religious freedom.
Targeted ads can with a/b testing do automated manipulation at large scale.
Overall it's a net negative for the individual customer and society at large.
I think key word here is `can be`
> We’re not going to ever live in a world without ads and I would far rather they be an actual service to me, presenting me things I actually think are cool and might like to buy.
This is not how ads work. If you have 2 products: one you have 1% chance to buy, another lets say 10%. If 1% one has 20x more profit, thats the ad you will see.
So, sometimes a targeted ad can be useful. A contextually targeted ad can be useful too ( e.g. cooking utensils / supplies on a a recipe site).
A targeted ad is one that knows more about you than your age range, gender and what you are currently looking at (sports event, cooking site etc.).
A targeted ad knows that you usually buy tickets to a certain sports team, or you prefer baking cookies rather than cakes, and that you prefer the "Mestle" brand of flour etc.
How much of your choice in products is based on word of mouth? How do you know those purchases are not as a result of ads. How many purchases are because of "brand familiarity" that is likely influenced by advertising over time (e.g. if you asked me to buy you an energy drink I would likely buy a Red Bull
> in my experience it always leads to the most obvious predictable and boring ads.
Targeted ads are not the same as tracked ads. Shoe HN posts are targeted ads. "You purchased 600 dog poop bags from Amazon, here are 15 other variations of the same product that you might want" in a recipe article is targeted.
Yeah I might also buy a redbull but I don't think they need to or should track me online to increase that likelyhood. And I don't think that would be a netpositive to my life. They can do just fine by traditional advertisements(and they do afaik!).
I don't believe that's considered targeted advertising under the DSA. If you're not dynamically selecting an ad to display based on data you have on me, it's not a targeted ad. It's just a contextual ad. A shoe HN post is static, can be read by anyone, there's no targeting logic involved, and you have no personal or behavioral data based on which to target.
"An ad that's meant to be appealing to white male software engineers 25-35 years old" isn't a targeted ad unless there's a system that serves it specifically to the target market.
EDIT: To support my point, the first proposal for Article 2b I found in the DSA documents:
Article 2b
Targeting of digital advertising
1. Providers of information society services shall not collect or
process personal data as defined in Article 4, point (1), of
Regulation (EU) 2016/679 for the purpose of targeting the
recipients to whom advertisements are displayed.
2. By way of derogation from paragraph 1, for the purpose
of targeting the recipients to whom advertisements for commercial
purposes are displayed, providers of information society services
may only collect and use the personal data of recipients who have
given their consent as defined in Article 4, point (11), of
Regulation (EU) 2016/679 explicitly to such collection and use.
[..]This is an essentially unsatisfiable burden of proof, isn’t it? In fifteen years on the Web I haven’t once bought or even looked up anything based on an explicit advertisement, even though I find “recommendation engines” occasionally useful. (Then again, I mostly use those as a workaround for crappy catalogues and site search, and the best recommendations I’ve seen were on pirate sites...)
That’s not to say that you’re not bringing up a valid point, it’s just that it’s not a fast dismissal it’s phrased as. I don’t know how one would actually go around proving this kind of hypothesis, or even how it would be phrased: “Ads have had no influence on my life”? Obviously false, given how pervasive they are. Too strong. “Ads have had no influence on which things I’ve used or bought”? Similarly false (I can think of several movies I’ve bought on VHS just to avoid the butchered TV cut). Too strong. “Ads in favour of a certain product line have never made me more favourably disposed towards that line”? Sounds plausible at least, but I’ve no idea how one could even approach proving that, and then there are availability-heuristic issues which are frequently what’s motivating the ads in the first place. Too weak.
Yet the underlying idea doesn’t seem that preposterous in my experience. It might be with more knowledge—economics certainly doesn’t come with a warranty of being unsurprising—but you’re not providing that here.
> Targeted ads are not the same as tracked ads. Sho[w] HN posts are targeted ads.
Then there are two different definitions of “targeted ads” in play: what the EU policy discussion concerned with, and the link’s title calls “targeted ads”, is specifically ads based on user behaviour; ads selected on the base of the page they would be placed on are explicitly OK ...
> "You purchased 600 dog poop bags from Amazon, here are 15 other variations of the same product that you might want" in a recipe article is targeted.
... But these are not (or at least not automatically), and I’d say there’s a distinction between them that is worth maintaining, one that the text under discussion chooses to express with the qualifier “targeted” for the latter but not the former.
There might be an objection that this is not the common meaning of the word “targeted” in the industry, and for all I know it may not be (I’ve certainly seen it used for just about any strategy for ad placement at all), but all in all, when dealing with an industry essentially built around twisting and shifting word meanings in the desired direction, which has already shown a propensity for manipulating the terminology around this particular issue to be as confusing and unappealing as possible (see “legitimate interest” in GDPR popups, which is not “legitimate interest” per the GDPR definition, or it wouldn’t even need an off switch), I’m not inclined to be particularly charitable.
I mean, if reasonable people show up and shout “aargh stupid journos, these are not targeted ads, these are frobnicated ads!”, if in fact every ad person ever mouths “frobnicated” every time the newsman on TV says “targeted”, then sure. We’ve certainly seen enough of that in both IT-related anything and anything-related legislation. But so far I’ve seen nothing that would point in that direction, only attempts (both willing and out of simple lack of attention) to erase, shift, or blur the boundary the EU legislators are trying to draw here. (I’m not idealizing them, and honestly I don’t have high hopes here, but credit where credit is due.)
So what if they are? GP's point still stands. When buying products, I often want a first hand experience from someone I trust; or at least a demonstration from an independent party that shows all facets of the product and not just what the advertisers want you to see. I don't care how the conveyor of that experience originally stumbled upon the product (although I would like potential conflict of interest or manipulation to be disclosed, including such things as free review samples). Maybe it fell from the sky, maybe they saw an ad for it and bought it, maybe they won it.. I don't care, it doesn't matter. I'm still not buying things from an ad.
If the ad is based on data that was harvested without my permission from a source that wasn't related in any way to the product then I don't want it targeting me.
And every single targeted ad is of the second type. It's nefarious and I have no issue with the current type of targeting being restricted.
*can*. And is also a net negative to millions of people, by creating pressure to consume in a world facing environmental collapse.
Ads pollute our minds and the world.
Furthermore, they cost quite a bit of money and the cost is ultimately always paid by the consumer. This is another net negative.
I'd rather see all ads banned.
The alternative to ads targeted towards an individual doesn't have to be completely random ads. Google even does this. The ads you see on a Google search is tailored to your search, they aren't ads based on your browsing history (though that might be part of the input).
Edit to add: I’m into 3D printing and when I search “new printer” from a normal tab, I get a mix of 2D and 3D printer ads on my Google SERP. From the same device and search term 10 seconds later in an incognito tab, I get only ads for 2D printers.
(I’m fine with this state as I’m interested in 3D printers, but it seems like I’m being targeted here rather than just my search terms being targeted.)
I don't know if I'm an outlier but almost all the ads I see are for products that I will never buy, or that I've already bought. I was looking for a recipe on my partner's phone last night and there was an interstitial ad with Amazon items - all of them were variations on a consumable that we had just bought 6 months worth of, and they were not cooking related.
We can have targeted ads that are appropriate, but we don't need invasive tracking to so so.
That said, non-targeted ads doesn't mean irrelevant. They can be contextual, e.g. DuckDuckGo's ads are not targeted, but based on your search terms.
Also, targeted ads introduce too many bad incentives: collecting data about users is profitable, social media pushing toxic content to increase engagement, increasing overconsumption, ... Banning targeted ads (where user tracking is involved) is a good step.
The cost being data collection on a MASSIVE scale.
Have you ever bought anything based on a targeted ad?
I think targeted ads are a waste of my time, the advertiser's time, everyone's time. Because despite all the effort, they fail to advertise anything I would care for. At worst, they might advertise something that almost seems like something I could want, and then I dive down the rabbit hole and find out it's not what I want. Complete waste of time. Thankfully that's only happened once or twice (usually ads are so far off the mark that I can dismiss them on first sight).
Like, I'm not collecting fridges, I just bought one.
A lot of people here use the web with barely any targeted ads due to good ad block. I don’t believe they are missing out as opposed to living better.
I don't want to be trapped in an algorithmic box, which assumes my past will dictate my future. The algorithms think that they know who I am, but I don't know that yet, and I don't think I'll ever know, and I certainly don't want them to decide for me.
It’s because of this very hopelessness that I would rather they get worse than get better.
So if you think targeted ads can be a net positive to your life, I have good news: you can still consent even if this proposal passes in its current form. Those of us who don't agree with you get to make a choice.
When I walk outside, I don't see ads for the NYC Metro system here. If real-life ads were as random as you suggest, I should have seen a few of those. But I don't, because real-life ads are geographically targeted. That's not the kind of targeting that's being banned here.
Targeted ads are turned off in my mom's Google account, and she does not have a Facebook account. The two identities were linked together by the ad industry when in 2014 my aunt logged into Facebook once from my mom's previous tablet, and that's when they gave my aunt a fifth sense.
What's even more frustrating is that the current tablet runs Blokada for host based blocking, and there's uBlock Origin in the browser, but none of that matters, my aunt will call her to point out what shoes my mom was reading about days before.
Garden furniture going on sale in Brno? I've never been to Brno (passed through it 3-4 times by train or bus, never getting off), and i don't own a house anywhere to need garden furniture, for that matter.
Private jet charters? I wish i was that rich.
Senior living homes, hearing aids? My father climbed Elbrus this summer.
The list goes on...
Apart from remarketing ads - like if i visited online store for telescopes, i see astronomy-related ads (plus yes, astrology-related too lol) for a while - almost all other ads i'm seeing online are truly bizarre and have nothing in common with what i want to buy. At the same time, badly needed things that the search engines could provide, are sorely missing - for example, many convenient flight connections are searchable manually online - by combining separate flight legs myself - but missing from online searches on sites like skyscanner...
https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/11/17225482/facebook-shadow-...
And do they want to ban ads targeted by "customer lists". Both Google Facebook allow advertizers to upload email or FB-ID lists, and will target an ad to show it only to people on the list. This (http://ghostinfluence.com/the-ultimate-retaliation-pranking-...) feels a lot more spooky to me than advertizing target to wide categories like health - I don't want or need to see products that are are for menopausal women, impotent men, or deaf old people since I'm not in any of these category.
A politician needs to give big tech something other than money to get their messages to be favourably targeted.
Don't forget that they already have access to virtually infinite money through abuse of market dominance, the only thing that can stand in their way is antitrust and data regulation.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-parent-meta-bans-targe...
You used to be able to send socialist ads to socialists and conservative ads to conservatives... and be everything at the same time and win. Its like a cheat code of politics.
Now to do this you have to promise Zuck to not support any antitrust and data protection regulation in return Zuck will probably take you to office by microtargeting. You don't need to worry about the media, facebook will "fact check" everything for you.
You can still target nonpolitical ads based on other attributes if it is not specific to very few people.
1. This is unnecessary regulation between private parties
2. This is power balancing between individuals and big corporations
Obviously legislators are aligned with case 2. I think they have realized that the problem is so complex that is better to regulate at the end of the pipeline and let the companies figure out how to achieve it. Otherwise you may forbid gathering data X only to incentivize gathering data Y to circumvent it and make things even worse
https://trackthis.link works quite well and is an insanely low-tech approach that works on basically all platforms.
Not to mention tools like uBlock Origin.
Like always when it comes to politics, these things boil down to "who gave the tribal chief bigger spoils". We as a civic society should eventually learn that corruption is maybe the only way to get to where we want to be.
Most countries distinguish between so called protected classes that deserve to be outside of the marketplace and classes that are not.
I don't really see the problem with ads that discriminate based on profession or income.
Whether they should be allowed to collect and consider other information is of course a different question.
As it is, no I don't like any form of targeted ads and I have never responded to them. But mostly I don't like their invasive behavior and unregulated business incentives.
For me it's always been about control.
If the surveillance companies (Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) used opt-in or honoured the Do Not Track header all this could be avoided.
Those that want tracked and targeted ads could request them and those that don't would be left alone.
Instead, by refusing to not honour, Do Not Track or using Dark UX Patterns to make it hard to opt out[1] they're affectively saying, "tough luck, we're going to do whatever we want regardless".
It's a race to the bottom to see which company can get away with being the most obnoxious.
We're left with legal means as the only curbs their behaviour.
.
1. Why do so many web sites get away with an "Allow All" but no reliable[2] "Reject All"?
2. Why is there a second set of things to opt out of as "Legitimate Purpose"? Why doesn't the "Reject All", when present, not cover these too?
Because you need to name stuff like session ID cookies, loadbalancer backend cookies and other stuff that is necessary for operation ("legitimate interest")... but you do not need consent from the user for these.
No you don't. You don't need to ask for permission for data you collect/store that is strictly required for your business to operate.
Key word: strictly required.
Meanwhile these leeches have latched on on a more nebulously defined "legitimate interest".
For example, if you need fraud protection for your order-processing business, you have a legitimate interest to process and store more data than is strictly required. Since such legitimate interests are innumerable they are not explicitly defined in the law.
So, the parasites clamp things like "siphon your data and sell it to the highest bidder" under "legitimate interest". Which skirts the law, and will fall apart under scrutiny. See the three-part test by UK's data authority, https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-data-protectio... (UK is so far still bound by GDPR)
1. Actual legitimate purposes for core functionality
2. A toggleable "legitimate purposes" under the ads section
Presenting the second option could be construed as malicious compliance or just dishonesty.
On sites where I've seen this, there is no one-click option to disable those, which should make them non-compliant with GDPR.
The problem is: The only way such ads are possible, is by private parties collecting information about the people they want to target with such ads.
"Targeting" and the associated data collection is much easier to determine and codify into law.
Ads are a completely legitimate business practice: I make a product or offer a service, so I want people to know about it.
Bans on targeted ads are not about the advertising, they are about the privacy concerns resulting from the data collection that is the prerequisite for targeted ads.
Perhaps specialised 'discovery' services would pop up for people wondering what sorts of new stuff/services was out there?
On the surface of it, I'd assume that if reaching out to customers to 'let them know you exist' via advertisements was prohibited, the amount of innovation and investment into products would decrease. But at the same time, the amount of money allocatable to product development within a given budget would increase, as you wouldn't have to expend so much on marketing (which in some cases, dwarfs the cost of R&D). But maybe the markets would just adapt anyways. Seems a fun thought experiment.
In theory a perfectly targeted ad might produce some value for me, but in practice people who make shit products have more money to throw at ads, making Sturgeons law even worse.
However, if a website I never visited before shows me the same ads, data collection happened, and that should either be banned, or made into strict opt-on-only.
Yes there is: My useraccount.
Ideally, if I am logged in, and if I consented that they may show me videos based on my preferences, I would be okay with them may recommending videos to me and refining these recommendations based on my views.
The consent should of course be opt-in only (eg. a simple switch in the account settings).
Using this information for recommending videos within that pages context only != Targeted advertising.
As long as the information never leaves their page, is used in no other page of their ecosystem, and as long as I can tell them to stop collecting it, delete what they already have, and are guaranteed by law that they keep no connection between that data and any identifying information other than my useraccount, I would be okay with that.
And yes, when I visit youtube without being logged in, I would be perfectly okay with having no/default recommendations, or recommendations based on the context of that page visit only.
There's also this gem:
In order to avoid fatiguing recipients who refuse to consent,
terminal equipment settings that signal an objection to processing
of personal data should be respected.
It sounds like they're also trying to make things like Do Not Track legally binding:
In order to avoid fatiguing recipients who refuse to consent,
terminal equipment settings that signal an objection to processing
of personal data should be respected.
This would be a massive win if you ask me. I don't want to be bombarded with consent bullshit all the time, and I also don't want my privacy violated.
You might like something that is out of your usual searches, then you see other people with it and complain how you didn't know before, because the algorithm made you be within your own bubble. The algorithm is "more of you" than you ever are of yourself.
I think random ads decimates the entire targeted ads industry (at least for ads in EU), and that protects the consumers, and is a big win from discoverability of products, hopefully creating a more fair marketplace. I use the word "hopefully," because one never knows how much ads are gonna cost if the criteria is "sheer force of exposure".
EDIT: Awful typos.
Who wanna join? :D
The politico title is correct, please change the title to that.
> Lawmakers will now have to negotiate with the Council, representing the 27 EU governments, which has shown no interest in tackling online advertising in the DSA.
As I understand it, the vote essentially determines the mandates of the representatives who will negotiate with the Council on behalf of the Parliament. Out of that negotiation will emerge the act that will actually come into effect.
1) a teenager exploring/researching their own sexuality on the family computer causes ads to be served to very religious mom and dad for queer friendly products or a pride flag
2) ads targeting someone with covid that send them to a scam testing site (that charges both the patient and the government) or pushing ineffective or dangerous treatments like colloidal silver.
It’s not that these are the only categories that can be abused but these are some most rife for abuse
I also think there's an important distinction between data that can be used on a platform's own website and information that follows you around the Internet (which this legislation doesn't appear to draw). In practical terms, this is the distinction between ads for services a gay teenager might actually use on a login-based social profile the teenager has voluntarily publicly displayed their sexual orientation on (and bombarding them with slightly fewer invitations to be heterosexual!) and rainbow ads following their mum round Internet.
But if you limit their targeting the entire method becomes much much less effective and hurts the economic incentive. Right now that seems the best they can do. The policies have to be realistic.
The issue is information following you…but good luck solving that
Now all that's left are the small matters of wording and enforcing the law...
You can, that is what the EU's privacy regulations are all about.
Say what you will about those annoying cookie banners, I see that as good things.
Progress is made!
The explanations have to be layman ones and what not. It's a very dark pattern, and at some point it should be addressed.
Now I'm not saying that solving the root causes of these problems is easy, but these solutions are just so lame. Just a couple of concrete examples:
* I see and hear of GDPR violations everywhere (here in the UK, pre and post Brexit). Despite the threat of legal action, companies still ignore (too small to care) or are ignorant of the rules. At the end of the day, Big Tech still owns all the personal data in some way or another getting around EU restrictions.
* The annoying cookie banners where everyone just clicks "accept all" because no one wants to go through a list of checkboxes. This is classic EU strategy to problems: just throw more bureaucracy and administration at a problem.
The solution should be that the EU creates its own Big Tech, under the rules and regulations that it itself creates. Instead all of our politicians are using WhatsApp to perform Official communications (frankly this is horrific to me).
Companies may ignore law, but fines are being issued, so they do it at their own risk: https://www.enforcementtracker.com/
> The annoying cookie banners where everyone just clicks "accept all" because no one wants to go through a list of checkboxes. This is classic EU strategy to problems: just throw more bureaucracy and administration at a problem.
These cookie banners are (slowly) being deemed illegal: "Accept all" and "Reject all" must have the same prominence and accessibility. GDPR is forcing companies to care about security and about how they use information about their users and, probably for the first time, it's forcing companies to be transparent with how they are processing their users' data. And it's not requiring company to do anything you wouldn't expect an honest person to do when you give them some personal information, it's not just throwing bureaucracy at a problem.
The legal follow-up could be better. The exacted fines should actually follow the law instead of being softened. With at least 4% of gross revenue in every instance, it would have bite and act to curb the excesses, thereby tackling the root problem. After all, it was never meant to outlaw data collection, just excessive surveillance.
> The annoying cookie banners
The GDPR isn't unclear about what companies can collect, what consent should be asked and how. Those banners are malicious compliance or non-compliance. They're purposefully built that way to get you as a potential consumer riled up about the regulation. And it's working: instead of talking about the companies trying to abuse your data and implementing horrible popups that don't do what the law says they should, you're now upset at the regulators. Classic case of "Don't like what they're saying? Change the narrative".
Actually I'm upset at both the companies using dark patterns and the horribly designed cookie regulations.
It was wild west before GDPR, it takes time for companies and attitudes to adjust. And that adjustment is ongoing. Every fine helps; it results in increasing compliance. Give it a few years, wild west won't be so wild anymore. I'm sure you'll still find lots of smaller companies that didn't get the memo but the likelihood that your daily activities involve entities that violate your privacy left and right is getting lower and lower.
> The annoying cookie banners where everyone just clicks "accept all" because no one wants to go through a list of checkboxes. This is classic EU strategy to problems
Annoying banners are not EU strategy, they are strategy by companies who want to violate your rights and annoy you until you consent. The regulators are aware of this problem and I believe it's being worked on.
The DSA proposal discussed in the article includes additional regulation against dark patterns and there's this little bit: > In order to avoid fatiguing recipients who refuse to consent, terminal equipment settings that signal an objection to processing of personal data should be respected.
I have no idea if it's going to work out but this would make something like Do Not Track legally binding. I very much support this bit, because I hate annoying consent nags as much as you do..
It’s deliberately ambiguous, oftentimes nonsensical, was a nightmare to implement, there’s enormous amounts of noncompliance, and now plenty of sites that can’t be accessed from the EU, because the company behind it did the math and it was cheaper and easier to not care about the EU customer base at all.
Not to mention all the potential avenues for abuse. I have a couple of friends who have used GDPR to actively abuse a relatively small company that they didn’t like (because they probably didn’t have the resources to understand all the implications of GDPR), and they spammed them with personal data and removal requests and threatened legal action.
GDPR is bullshit. Your data is a commodity irrespective of GDPR. De-anonymising is trivial.
GDPR also double-victimizes businesses that were a part of a hack, i.e. the British Airways hack. On top of the damage inflicted on them by the hack, they also got hit with an 8 figure fine for a data breach. Which is insane, because everyone can get hacked.
The only thing GDPR has achieved is that you have a legal right to access the data that somebody holds on you, and to request the deletion of it. Everything else should be scrapped.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/DN...
Companies who 'did the math' and it was easier for them to ignore the EU customer base were addicted to ad placement and tracking anyway, so good riddance.
Companies should be responsible for their data security. If a bank is hacked and they steal my money, the money is insured and the insurance company pays it back. It's the same with personal data, if a data breach occurs, the company should be insured and the insurance company should cover liabilities.
Of course, but they shouldn’t be hit with an arbitrary fine on top of that. The fine goes directly to the government’s coffers, and not to cover any liabilities incurred.
It’s kicking a man who’s already down.
> Companies who 'did the math' and it was easier for them to ignore the EU customer base were addicted to ad placement and tracking anyway, so good riddance.
Not necessarily. In most cases it just didn’t make sense for them to hire a lawyer who specialised in the GDPR (I believe they were hard to come by and expensive in the US and the rest of the world), so they just decided to HTTP 451 instead.
GDPR doesn't fine companies for having their security breached.
> Not necessarily.
Almost certainly necessary since if they weren't "addicted to ad placement and tracking" as GP put it they wouldn't have to stop and thing about GDPR.
British Airways were fined under GDPR.
> Almost certainly necessary since if they weren't "addicted to ad placement and tracking" as GP put it they wouldn't have to stop and thing about GDPR.
How very eurocentric.
This ban would not make dent in my problem with targeted ads. That someone gets scammed out of their money and it had nothing to do with their health, religion or sexual orientation.
For example, I buy alot of musical gear. I love seeing ads with guitars and pianos.
This seems like a good compromise.
Something really sad is that sometimes you search for something you actually want to buy like, say, winter tire chains for your car... Then you end up buying them but for two weeks you keep getting ads: because the system has no way of knowing you actually now bought some at the petrol station down the street.
I run pi-hole now: works great and seems to at least take care of the worst offenders.
I think we should ban all ads, but I would use such a service if it worked well.
For some others I should get money back because I couldn't find what was advertised before (for example recipe sites that contain mostly Blabla with interspersed ads and only a rudimentary recipe that isn't reproducible).