Norwegian ban on Meta behavioral advertising extended to entire EU | Hacker News Reader

Norwegian ban on Meta behavioral advertising extended to entire EU

datatilsynet.no

449 pointsaleksanb240 comments

Context from the Norwegian article:

Meta promised to ask users whether they want to opt-in, but they never did, so now they are banning these behaviours until they have come up with a better way of handling this.

Furthermore, Meta wanted those who opt-out of data sharing to have to pay money, which is most likely not legal.

> Meta wanted those who opt-out of data sharing to have to pay money, which is most likely not legal.

I really don't get this attitude. I 100% endorse everyone's right to uninstall every Meta app and never use them, and to block their on-page trackers on third-party websites with an adblocker, all that. But the notion that there should be some sort of EU-protected "Right To Use Facebook For Free"... nah. Using the apps inherently shares data with the company whose servers you're using. Don't like it, that's fine, there's only one correct recourse: Don't use it.

Also, if Facebook's users were all paying for it (and all its competitors), there would be no advertising on it, and incentives in social media would be aligned much better. The government which requires companies to provide their service "for free" would be actively working against that better world by pushing the ad-supported model, which they clearly hate, as the only one.

What you are asking for is the ability to sell your right to privacy. Laws generally don't allow you to sell or otherwise relinquish your rights, eg. selling your vote or selling yourself into slavery or accepting licenses in conflict with rights granted by local consumer laws. Some things we don't want assigned a value that can be traded. The EU has decided that the right to privacy includes not being tracked on the Internet, and any 'you can only use this if you give up your right or pay money' is not going to be allowed, because it ends up destroying that right for many.

But as you say, they aren't asking you to give up your rights (because of the 'or pay money' clause). You can just stop using it. If you want to use it and not give up rights, pay money. What is wrong with that?

I don't agree - you can't just stop using it. Given the size of facebook (or google, amazon, microsoft, apple etc), they are ingrained in our (tech) life in such a way that one has to invest a - not negligible - amount of work to stop using them. To sum it up: companies want to have "power", but without having "responsibility".

You CAN stop using them. Do you WANT to? Are you unable to?

Social media addiction isn't a right, and just because you have a share to Facebook or Twitter integration doesn't mean you have to use either.

You can. It's almost quite literally an effort of 30 - 60 min per day or week or month, depending on how skilled you are at keeping things convenient, meaning self-hosting services and maintaining them.

And say getting a job, when everything is through LinkedIn?

You can get the contact details of the hiring manager on the companies website or call their front desk or ask in an E-Mail to info@xyz or support@xyz or even by asking around.

and there are various ways to prove your value that are not based on networks

You won't know unless you saw the listing, which these days is put on LinkedIn.

well, change your way of picking an employer, I guess?!

the thing is, almost everyone is or will be looking in the near future.

What I do is of no consequence if that's all hiring managers do. These apps can become systemic.

attentional bias. That's not all all hiring managers do.

You can, but if you decide to stay away from messengers like WhatsApp, you miss out. Which is OK unless you have kids in school age.

Once a service gets so big, that you are practically forced to join, regulation seems like a very good idea

teach your kids signal?

> teach your kids signal?

Getting your own kids to switch messenging client is fairly trivial. Then they can talk to you (and to each other).

The network effect means you then have to persuade other kids, and parents, and sports coaches, and music teachers and ... to switch.

(Source: have three kids and we have exactly this issue)

Did you organize meetings with parents? In coop with teachers?

Signal is spy stuff. WhatsApp means obedience and submission.

> Did you organize meetings with parents? In coop with teachers?

At least where we are, schools have been told not to touch WhatsApp at all, and use another (more GDPR-compliant) messaging product; despite this there is typically an unofficial WhatsApp group for each class, but no teachers are members.

> WhatsApp means obedience and submission

I don't disagree, but I don't think you'll convince many parents to stop using WhatsApp if you approach it like that.

My impression is that most parents are very busy people and are just trying to keep up with the chaos caused by their kids; they will opt for the easiest solution that solves their problem.

Regulation is imperative.

Missing out is an illusion.

Enough ways to get around the benefits of using WhatsApp for business. Enough customers hate using WhatsApp to communicate with businesses.

What? They are not a neccessity. You are speaking like technology is food and water.

I have family my age and older who don't never use Facebook and barely interact with technology and they get by life just fine.

The "or you can give up your rights in exchange for a discount" part is the problem. You can't buy a car by agreeing to be a slave for 90 days either.

Commercial subscription services that don't violate your privacy are 100% fine, and incidentally, as xp84 noted, are way healthier because the user is at least a customer. (I dream of a day where companies spend $0 on advertising and instead all commercial websites and social media are run on small subscriptions or frictionless micropayments and the only person they need to keep happy is the customer.)

Of course "free" services have a massive advantage over paid ones. If Meta can profitably run Facebook just on generic ads without tracking, like a newspaper, that's allowed too. But if they can't, well, tough shit.

> You can't buy a car by agreeing to be a slave for 90 days either.

Sorta??? It's not like I volunteer my time to my job.

Thats like saying, if you don’t like lead in your paint. You can just use different paint. Like yeah sure, but still some regulations that stop them from putting lead in paint is a good thing

>> Laws generally don't allow you to sell or otherwise relinquish your rights,

> If you want to use it and not give up rights, pay money.

Ahh, we are not asking you to sell. We are asking you to give them in exchange for services.

> >> Laws generally don't allow you to sell or otherwise relinquish your rights,

> Ahh, we are not asking you to sell. We are asking you to give them in exchange for services.

That's covered in the "or otherwise relinquish your rights" part. Privacy is a right, you can't sell or relinquish it, in exchange or donated, doesn't matter.

It does not work like that, the country made some laws. For example what safety rules does the car have to follow to be legal in us. You cannot just say, if you don't like that the car does not have a backup camera doesn't use it.

In the case of the right of privacy, what is wrong with your suggestion is that it is what we have today, and we end up where we are today. You must sacrifice your right of privacy to use Facebook, Twitter and others. And using Facebook, Twitter and others is not a choice for many people. It is forced on many (most?) by rules of employment (some schools require teachers to be on Facebook for example), economic reasons (must be on social media to be economically competitive), or just social (all my friends are there, so I need to be there too). Choosing to retain your right of privacy is a sacrifice, which is to say that maintaining your right of privacy has a cost. The EU has said that there should not be a cost to preserving what it sees as a right. Not everyone can afford to pay that cost.

That’s like saying that using a site with moderation rules is asking you to sell your right to free speech, or that going to a nude spa is asking you to sell your right to privacy.

I have no problem with EU regulating what Facebook can do, in the same way I accept that some places might regulate against nude spas, I just take issue with the way you framed it.

Please dont bring free speech into this. As everyone very well knows, it trumps everything else including basic human rights in a certain country.

It is a basic human right.

Going to a nude spa necessitates giving up some right to privacy. You expect the minimum necessary to provide the service you want. But you certainly don't want them filming you and posting the pics on the Internet. This is similar to how the GDPR is fine with storing personal information required to provide the service to the customer, but not storing unnecessary information or using it for other purposes. Going to a nudist bar would be a choice that necessitates giving up some right to privacy, but giving free drinks to women would be coercion and probably illegal in many courts.

Free speech is always in conflict with other rights. You don't get to say whatever you want on a forum someone provided and deemed to be child friendly for example. Or rant about atheism and corruption of the clergy on a bible studies forum. Or commit fraud. This sort of problem is why free speech is not considered a right in many countries and instead a luxury. You get to say what you like but have to suffer the consequences. But your right to free speech stops at my right to not hear you. And your right to pay your employees what you want stops at their right to fair pay. The conflicts and the grey areas need mediation and government regulation.

> Free speech is always in conflict with other rights

Within the liberal framework, most strongly embodied by the US, rights are fundamentally meant to be negative rights. In other words, they are better conceived of as limitations placed on the state. Freedom of speech means the state cannot dictate what you can or cannot say. The right to privacy means the state is limited in its capacity to rummage through your mail, enter your house, etc.

Europeans tend to view what Americans view as privileges as rights. Positive rights.

> Free speech is always in conflict with other rights. You don't get to say whatever you want on a forum someone provided and deemed to be child friendly for example. Or rant about atheism and corruption of the clergy on a bible studies forum.

That isn't what freedom of speech is as it's conceived in the liberal framework. In the US, there is no law preventing any of those platforms from regulating speech within their own domains. The right simply ensures that the state is itself incapable of regulating speech.

> Going to a nude spa necessitates giving up some right to privacy. You expect the minimum necessary to provide the service you want.

You could argue that no spa necessitates nudity whatsoever. It isn't simple to define the boundaries of what is minimally necessary in order to provide a service. Imagine that you're watching a streaming service which plays ads. If the streaming service collects some information related to your demographic, watching habits, etc, and is able to serve you targeted ads that pay 5x more than if they were anonymous/general ads, many consumers would happy accept that if it meant that they had to watch only half as many ads.

You act as if there is just a relatively straightforward right to privacy, but what's really happening is that the state would be putting (somewhat arbitrary) limitations on the boundaries of what two parties are allowed to consent to (in this case, between the viewer and the streaming company).

American morality tends to favor limitations on the state rather than limitations on the way two consenting parties may engage with one another.

It's a double standart again.

Newspapers lobbied the EU that it s allowed for them (not sure if it was changed at the end). But if you go to a large european newspaper site (eg spiegel.de) then it explicitely asks you tha you pay to access it or you must agree to behavioral advertising. But facebook should not be allowed to do this.

Yes and this should be pointed out. However, it’s imo far from a simple selfish lobbying move. If behavioral advertising and tracking is not allowed by anyone, it will even the playing field as ads return to being context-centric, as it should. It’s too early to say if news papers will try to weasel out an exception for themselves in such a world, imo.

More generally, you can want a change for everyone even if you are not currently doing what you’re preaching. You can play a game according to the rules and want to change the rules at the same time. While I agree this is a lower level of belief you can still want it, and argue for it, in good faith. Deviating from laws and even industry norms can be disproportionately costly, relative to your competitors, especially if you’re already struggling, which is true for most of legacy media.

Also, journalists are typically not the owners of media companies, and they sometimes cover issues with conflicts of interest with their owners. That’s a healthy thing.

Newspapers weaseled already an exeption out 2 years ago, see https://www.heise.de/news/E-Privacy-Verordnung-EU-Rat-fuer-V...

I've never seen anything like that in any Norwegian newspaper, and I would expect some of them to try if they thought they could get away with it. But I don't think they would at least not if the retoric coming out of Datatilsynet is anything to go by.

How German newspaper get away with that I have no idea. But you can't expect the Norwegian government to handle German language newspapers. If spiegel.de had a Norwegian presence though. Then it would be reasonable for Norway to have a look at it.

I loath Spiegel just as much as any other online privacy advocate, but I'd always assumed they were simply in violation of the GDPR. Can you provide any references indicating that this is the result of a special exemption due to successful lobbying?

Many German sites do that too - nothing that I use daily to remember names, but I see that choice between ads and pay rather often. And I usually choose to leave, but not always...

There is a german artcile about this here:

https://www.heise.de/news/E-Privacy-Verordnung-EU-Rat-fuer-V...

Read the part about cookie walls for newspapers:

Cookie-Wall soll bleiben

Wer auf seiner Webseite unentgeltlich Nachrichteninhalte verfügbar macht und das durch Werbung finanziert, soll dabei Cookies ohne Zustimmung der Nutzer setzen können. Eine "Cookie-Wall" als Alternative zu einer Bezahlschranke soll also zulässig bleiben. User, die nicht für Werbezwecke analysiert werden möchten, müssen gegebenenfalls ein kostenpflichtiges Abo abschließen. Diese Klausel wird an die Voraussetzung geknüpft, dass der User prinzipiell zwischen verschiedenen Varianten wählen können. Dazu kommen weite Spielräume für Direktmarketing auch via Bots.

Thank you. If I understand that article correctly, the European Council is proposing a carve-out in the GDPR for newspapers. That would make actions of Spiegel illegal at this moment and until the European Council's proposed exemption is implemented, as well as being illegal in Britain, where the GDPR was implemented originally but further European Union legislation is not automatically followed. Does that sound right to you?

I'm no expert, but I think this was accepted 2 1/2 years ago and is already implemented?

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2021...

Look here (referenced pdf in the above url): https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-6087-2021-I...

(21aa) In some cases the use of processing and storage capabilities of terminal equipment and the collection of information from end-users' terminal equipment may also be necessary for providing a service, requested by the enduser, such as services provided in accordance with the freedom of expression and information including for journalistic purposes, e.g. online newspaper or other press publications as defined in Article 2 (4) of Directive (EU) 2019/790, that is wholly or mainly financed by advertising provided that, in addition, the end-user has been provided with clear, precise and user-friendly information about the purposes of cookies or similar techniques and has accepted such use.

I would love to believe that advertising would go away if only we all paid subscription fees. Cable television tells a different story.

Then again, Netflix and YouTube Premium contradict that (for now).

Both are either introducing or toying with the idea of introducing ads. Because paid + ads still makes them more money than just a regular subscription.

And since the goal is to make always more money the future is gonna be paid subs + ads.

I don’t really think this is gonna fly. It’s quite jarring having ads before or during a movie (even at cinemas, but at least it’s once in a while). With cable you could switch channels, but streaming is a more personal experience. Especially when you’re supposed to have control over the programming.

Cable also contradicted that for a time.

Well, they are already pushing ads on people and make money through that business model. Forcing the ads to be targeted creates another revenue stream for Meta but does not add anything to your argument that we should be willing to give this away in exchange for free use. We are already paying for it, with time and attention and them manipulating our emotions.

I don't mind this business model as much as some, but I think you're arguing the wrong thing here.

I often see this argument that if we'd all pay for services like Facebook, they wouldn't have to charge.

Let me offer a counterpoint: if there is money on the table, corporations will get it. Example, you pay for cable, and still get ads. You pay for Netflix and still get Netflix ads in the app. All paid aps harvest and sell your behaviour data. Greed does not permit that money be left on the table.

There are companies that try to align their incentives with the customers incentives by using a certain business model. I pay $25 for a search engine, that costs way less than operating netflix. I would be very shocked if they actually abuse the data they shouldn't collect on me. My point being, this only applies to very big coorps. There are companies that (at least claim to) care about privacy and do not sell off their users.

Well of course. If they sell you a specific product and then don't deliver, then there wasn't money on the table, that's just lying.

> Also, if Facebook's users were all paying for it (and all its competitors), there would be no advertising on it,

Ah yes, much like how cable TV has no ads on it, right? Or newspapers. Or how Microsoft Windows has no ads on it because you paid for the OS? Or like how smart TVs aren't spying on you because you bought them…

If there's money to be made by spying and putting ads, it will be done, no matter if you pay for it or not.

And that's the reason why it is probably illegal: if you accept the cookies, they track you, if you refuse cookies and pay, you have to agree to their terms and conditions which allow them to track you as well. Head they win, tail you lose.

With cable you’re paying the cable company, not the content provides. For that you’d have to pay the stations as well. Similar to Netflix, pay for your network, and pay the content provider.

That's exactly the kind of BS Facebook would say to defend their ads for paying customers as well: “you're paying for the portal, not for the feed, the ads pay for the feed” or something like that.

In fact, I'm pretty sure Google will eventually do this for premium after some time: “you're paying the platform, ads are paying the content creators ”.

> With cable you’re paying the cable company, not the content providers.

Cable and satellite such as Comcast, Time Warner Cable or DirecTV pay networks like ESPN and TNT a certain amount PER CUSTOMER for programming content each month. The median price paid for each channel a subscriber gets is 14 cents. Sports content costs the cable company the most, ESPN was estimated to cost $8.37 per month in 2018, but arguably actually should cost much more if you consider time each channel is watched versus its cost:

https://www.thewrap.com/cable-network-carriage-fees/

https://variety.com/vip/pay-tv-true-cost-free-1234810682/

Facebook is only banned from behavioural advertising; regular advertising is still perfectly fine. They're not being banned from making money at all, they're only being banned from using personal data to make more money.

Nobody will blow the whistle on whether that's true or not. It's a fact that we can't trust companies like Meta. Not because it's engineers who implement dark patterns or because all the people in a business earn more money if they disregard human or environmental wellbeing but because leadership literally lies to congress, judges, the public, their users and their customers all the freaking time.

> leadership literally lies to congress, judges, the public, their users and their customers all the freaking time.

The judiciary system takes lies into account. Doing that while testifying under oath might end poorly. See SBF's trial for reference.

And that's great! Similar schemes are still rollin', though, and there are people right here on HN, who could blow the whistle on a great many things that are unethical and corrupt.

The GDPR says that consent must be freely given and freely revocable, otherwise it isn't real consent. It would be obviously unfair if, for example, your employer could say "agree to install our spyware on your personal devices or you're fired", or for your landlord to say "agree to let me put surveillance cameras in your apartment or you're evicted". That isn't consent, it's coercion. A right that you can be coerced to relinquish isn't a right.

Facebook have a right to charge a subscription fee. They have a right to ask you to provide your personal data. They don't have the right to charge their users a privacy tax.

Where can I opt-out of being tracked by them without ever having a facebook/meta account?

> Using the apps inherently shares data with the company whose servers you're using.

That's not a problem. The problem is that these companies share it with others. That's what requires consent and Meta isn't asking for it and does it anyway.

Facebook can show as many ads it wants. It can even show as many ads as it wants without asking for user consent.

> Using the apps inherently shares data with the company whose servers you're using. Don't like it, that's fine, there's only one correct recourse: Don't use it.

You are missing the part where the user does not know that his data (everything he does) is collected and sold on the open market. Just read a privacy policy. Nowhere is written: we will record everything that you send and your behaviour and sell it. They say they might collect some usage data and what you post and might share it to "third parties".

I would _love_ if i have to pay for this crap. But hey, i already paid for Android and Google is taking my data without any shame, so i'm skeptical that this will bring an improvement.

I don't think it's the ads people need to be worried about. It's pages, groups and their "users" posts manipulating people. News flash: a majority aren't even real human users.

Source that dissects this?

I always doubt anyone who sees 'bots' everywhere they go, but I agree with them on the groups part. https://old.reddit.com/r/ShitMomGroupsSay/ regularly has some good examples.

Ironically, I've posted there a couple of times in a way that (barely) went against their own groupthink and got downvoted like crazy.

I wonder how much of these are powered by GPT.

There are some articles regarding it. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jun/05/google-an...

My personal theory is that we have been mingling with AI generated content long before Chat GPT was revealed to the public, at least in the last 10-15 years. And that Chat GPT was not the first on the block manipulating people with the technology. I just think this based on the fact that the NSA was spying on people long before whistle blowers revealed it, same has to go for AI manipulation by various government agencies and non government "bad actors". We may get confirmation of this within the next 10-15 years if someone blows a whistle.

None, another internet, drivel-fueled LARP.

Why not both?

Ads are less worrisome because you know they're an ad because they are marked with a icon usually. It's the fake posts that are tricking people into beliefs without them even realizing that it's propaganda/ads

> "users" posts manipulating people.

Are we talking about MSM here? Because those doing it are real human users, some of them quite famous.

I wonder if one day there will be a majority of bots liking AI-generated content, so it will be a closed loop.

Long after the last human logs off we still have to run it because it will be the primary economical engine of tech.

I the term bot is interesting, I think it cbelievean be expanded to any automata predictably responding in a certain fashion. Twitter "reply" accounts even if operated by humans but acting like bots should be considered bots. Posts that don't move the discussion along but just reaffirm in one direction or the other are just pure noise and useless. Discourse is broken or the human brain is, unsure which it is.

For people who don't read Norwegian, here's the Norwegian Data Protection Authority's previous post on this matter (which the EDPB has now sided with Norway on) in English: https://www.datatilsynet.no/en/news/aktuelle-nyheter-2023/me...

More details on the temporary ban: https://www.datatilsynet.no/en/news/aktuelle-nyheter-2023/te...

I wish the US would get its act together on stuff like this but it’s too busy getting campaign funds from such schemes

It's not just that; the US just doesn't believe much in regulating businesses, even if they're demonstrably harming society. They really believe "The Invisible Hand" will make everything better in the end.

> the US just doesn't believe much in regulating businesses

The US has tons of strange regulations like banning car manufacturers from selling cars themselves without a middleman or dictating what kind of showerheads are allowed to be sold.

Fun fact: most showerheads can easily be modified to allow maximum water flow rates. 30 seconds and a pair of pliers is often all it takes.

The US is nothing if not inconsistent. The car-selling thing is due to state laws, not federal, and really the result of corruption: the dealerships are politically connected. The showerhead thing is due to environmentalism, so the US does sometimes make regulations with that impetus. There's no environmental aspect to banning targeted advertisements; it's purely social.

> There's no environmental aspect to banning targeted advertisements; it's purely social.

Arguably, the process of targeted advertisements consumes more power.

Look at your adblock stats. Now imagine most of these scripts probably would have loaded even more stuff if you didn't block them. Depending on the sites I visit, I have like 30% of my web traffic removed.

AdBlock is an environmental thing! And true, I don't wanna know how much these "real time bidding on ad space" things cost to operate, energy wise.

That's what a politician might say, but there is an absurd amount of regulation in most industries. What it results in is debatable.

It's worse than that: the US makes laws based on who pays them the most.

Has nothing to do with campaign contributions. The government likes it that the data exists, because if it does, that means they can access it.

Yeah I don't think there is much hope there so long as corporations are donors to political campaigns (Something that still looks weird when I type it, but presumably doesn't sound strange to a US person).

Sadly, it’s not exclusive to the US. In Brussels we might jokingly dismiss the lobbyists and their think tanks, but they fund politicians just the same; but admittedly via non-profits and other more intricate schemes. I’m very proud of some EU accomplishments, but we’re mired in lobbying too.

If i travel to the eu as an American does that mean it’s illegal to track me while present in their territory? Would I be able to sue them and which country would be most favorable for the largest payout if so?

I’m happy to write their support team an email letting them know my intentions to travel (lol).

I am not a lawyer.

"If i travel to the eu as an American does that mean it’s illegal to track me while present in their territory?"

Yes.

"Would I be able to sue them"

You can sue any time but only makes sense if meta does something illegal.

"and which country would be most favorable for the largest payout if so?"

If Meta breaks the EU law you would likely have to sue in the country were you were present. Could also be that you have to sue Meta in an EU country were they have an office. (Ireland? Luxembourg? Dunno).

"I’m happy to write their support team an email letting them know my intentions to travel (lol)."

This is a great idea, unfortunately there are no punitive damages in most EU countries. Your payment would be tiny.

That is disappointing. What is the motivation for them to actually obey the law?

Well, they EU can sue too and if the government sues you it is a different game and can get expensive.

Fines for breaking EU Competition Law Overall limit: The fine is limited to 10% of the overall annual turnover of the company.

Annual turnover of Meta?

Not sure if that's a serious question and you actually consider lawsuits by private individuals the only functioning method of law enforcement, but: enforcement by governments or regulators is a thing, and on top of that anyone can still sue Meta, they're just not going to get rich doing so.

The GDPR fines can actually be quite large, although they won't be paid out to you personally.

«The more serious infringements go against the very principles of the right to privacy and the right to be forgotten that are at the heart of the GDPR. These types of infringements could result in a fine of up to €20 million, or 4% of the firm’s worldwide annual revenue from the preceding financial year, whichever amount is higher.»

Source: https://gdpr.eu/fines/

The enforcement is that the state regulators can fine them quite substantially. In the EU and UK a lot of things around regulating business behaviour with consumers happens with consumers complaining to regulators rather than consumers suing companies through class action suits.

In the UK at least more often than not if I have a problem with a company, esp for some kind of utility, there is an ombudsman that is the first port of call over the courts.

The fines that the EU states can issue are very substantial % of revenue amounts.

In the case of the UK, which I'm most familiar with, it's probably a combination of the ico and ofcom which have the relevant powers to fine someone like Meta.

> Could also be that you have to sue Meta in an EU country were they have an office. (Ireland? Luxembourg? Dunno).

One could probably sue them in the country the behavior was documented.

The equivalent case would be if A assaulted B in Norway and flee to Chicago. B could report the crime and sue in the UK, get a legal ruling, and the Norway legal branch would then deal with the US branch to bring something out of the situation (compensation, equivalent punishment in the US, extradition etc.)

And when you sue you must justify a damage. You dont sue on principle when no damage was inflicted upon you. For instance if someone runs a camera in the street and always delete the footage, sure it s not legal per se, he tracked you, but since he actually always deleted the footage, you cant well ask for any compensation for any damage: how will the judge repair your tort ?

I guess you probably could, but any fines or such would not be paid out to you personally. Enforcement is primarily the responsibility of national data protection authorities (DPAs) in each EU member state.

No, RGPD only applies to EU citizens even if they are abroad or if they are using services not based in the EU.

Not entirely correct, it applies to EU and EEA _residents_.

Individuals cannot sue for GDPR violations. They van only raise their concerns to data protection agencies and these can sue, bur they can also decide to ignore.

It's easier to report them to your state's data protection authority. If more people do so and the authority does its job, they will sue on your behalf, like the Norwegian Data Protection Authority did.

In practice it's easier to register a new account in Europe and just use that account.

> If i travel to the eu as an American does that mean it’s illegal to track me while present in their territory?

In short, no.

The GDPR is about protecting EU citizens, and only if you reside in the EU (even as a US citizen), the GDPR will be relevant for you.

They could just show dumb ads and it might even work better. It's not so hard, you look at the page /content and get the ad category. I've had Google and Meta account for more than 10 years and all ads are completely irrelevant. I go to r/programming on new browser and they show me ads that actually might have something interesting.

The whole adtech vs. hand-crafted ad systems is a big question for small site owners who can't be asked to sell their own ad space etc.

But Meta is in a very special position. They have enough user data to pinpoint ads without having to trade data with anyone. They are large enough that they can easily manage all their ad sales in-house.

They if anyone should be interested in really strict regulation. Because if everyone just has to use the data they have in house for good reason (Facebook does have my age, city, interests etc and I accept that!) then facebook has an extreme advantage in advertising.

> The whole adtech vs. hand-crafted ad systems is a big question for small site owners who can't be asked to sell their own ad space etc.

Could the ad networks scan the site instead and use the content on the pages to determine likely target audiences? You could still do ad networks, and target audience, based on the site that they are currently on.

The current version of adtech is pretty damaging to society as a whole and it's getting increasingly worse. Apparently nothing online or content related is able to generate enough revenue to keep itself afloat without ads. Manufactures of TVs and cars are collecting and selling data to increase profit, but are themselves buying ads, making it akin to a pyramid scheme. Maybe we need to start taking a look at the industries that are heavily depending on selling ad space to survive and question if they need to exist, or should be transformed into actual products.

> Could the ad networks scan the site instead and use the content on the pages to determine likely target audiences? You could still do ad networks, and target audience, based on the site that they are currently on.

Yes. But it simply doesn't work as well for most cases as targeting based on what you watched on netflix yesterday, googled last tuesday, and what products you had in your shopping basked last year but removed before you checked out.

I'd still love to see the statistics that shows that hyper targeted ads are more effective to any reasonable degree.

What I'm currently browsing seems more relevant in many cases, as compared to which sites I visited last week.

> The Norwegian Privacy Council's decision is an instruction to the Irish Data Protection Authority to place a permanent ban on Meta's European head office in Ireland

Isn't this going to be a problem? The Irish DPA has been known to be in bed with big tech in the past, considering Ireland's entire economy is based around being a tax haven for Big Tech, and importing tech workers with the highest EU salaries taxed at 52% for the highest bracket

https://web.archive.org/web/20230609051152/https://www.irish...

I translated this text to English and what I don't understand is they talk about the Norwegian Data Protection Authority, quickly say something about European Privacy Council, and then go on telling:

> "The Norwegian Privacy Council's decision is an instruction to the Irish Data Protection Authority to place a permanent ban on Meta's European head office in Ireland. Once this has happened, the ban will come into effect."

Either Norway is banning something on their own, or they follow EU regulations, but I don't think a 'Norwegian ban gets extended to here and there'. I have the feeling stuff gets mixed up a little here.

The holding company for Meta in the EU is located in Ireland because the double Irish system of accounting allowed them to avoid paying corporate taxes in the EU. (Not sure if this is still the case, I think they now always have to pay the minimum 13% rate.)

I think any kind of enforcement against Meta has to go through Ireland because of that. The EU is a treaty, not a country. It is always local authorities that have to enforce legal action.

> The EU is a treaty, not a country. It is always local authorities that have to enforce legal action.

I know, that's why the order of things mentioned in the article feels out of line.

My guess is they implemented EU policy (all states implement their owns laws to satisfy the various EU treaties) and they have notified the Irish DPC of their findings; and naturally expect Ireland to follow suit …

behavioral marketing is about more than making money. you are nudging millions and billions of people in certain directions. It has completely changed majorities of brackets of the current and last generation.

laws will not be enough to stop this

Laws may not be enough but it would be a good start at least. If that doesn’t work we’ll try something else.

my bad for not elaborating.

we have always been dependant on whistleblowers and ethical hackers and now, for just a few years, we are at the tipping point where they are the last line of defence. Corruption has almost irreversibly disabled the playing field on which the civil society can act as a red team to corporate visions and strategies.

Something else is always in attempt and laws are an absolute must but whether either of the many measures work, lies in the hands of whistleblowers and hackers.

Maybe this makes my ultimate dream come one step closer: paying for what I use (I still like to log into Instagram about once a month), without being tracked at all, and without having to watch any advertising at all.

scandinavians are no different from other people, and changing the rules of advertising will not diminish Norwegian companies from wanting to advertise their goods.

back in the 80's Norway had a ban on cigarette advertising, so Marlboro launched a clothing/lifestyle brand, blue jeans and other cowboy style clothes. With their competitors hobbled by the advertising ban, perhaps that was even more effective.

>scandinavians are no different from other people

Household consumption as a % of GDP in Norway is 30% compared to 68% in the US. The Norwegian public sector produces 70% of Norway's GDP. You're underestimating to what extent these policies reflect real differences in how countries are run. In the good old USA Facebook et al are allowed to do what they do because people keeping those credit cards busy is what keeps the economy up. Doesn't work that way in Norway and a decent chunk of Europe.

70% seemed insanely high to me and so I checked this. It seems like the IMF has a similar (but not exact stat) that you quoted as 48%: https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/NOR?zoom=NOR...

USA is 42% on the same measure.

Government expenditure is a very different metric as that's just what the state spends, not how it generates its income. Which in theory could be almost entirely by the private sector. Here's the US state department quoting the relevant reports (https://www.state.gov/reports/2022-investment-climate-statem...)

"The public sector accounts for nearly 66 percent of GDP. The Norwegian government is the largest owner in Norway, with ownership stakes in a range of key sectors (e.g., energy, transportation, finance, and communications)"[...]

Norway has a ton of publicly owned oil, on an industrial scale. You aren't establishing that that isn't the explanation for all of it.

When Europeans come to the US, they largely behave like Americans, they fit right in. What Europeans need to stop doing is telling themselves that they're different.

A ton of oil they sell, but don't spend the money from. The oil money is simply invested. They're one of the largest funds in the world. The government of Norway can spend 3% per budget year under certain rules, but rarely do. The first time it ever happened was in 2016.

When the oil runs out or demand for oil disappears, Norway won't plummet into poverty unlike a lot of other oil rich countries. The oil certainly made them rich initially, but their reluctance to spend money derived from oil will keep them rich.

True but frankly doesn’t matter to the online commentariat. Norway is a tiny country that most people don’t know anything about, but if they do know that it is an oil state then that becomes the explanation for literally everything. Even traits that are exactly like Sweden and Denmark are because of Oil.

Disclaimer: guess my passport.

> When Europeans come to the US, they largely behave like Americans, they fit right in. What Europeans need to stop doing is telling themselves that they're different.

America has military bases all over Europe. I’m going to arbitrarily decide that you need to establish that that doesn’t explain what you have been experiencing.

In India, you cannot directly advertise alcohol on TV.

So, famous alcohol brands launched soda water, mineral water, and even glassware. One company has music CDs. They advertise those instead.

Nitpick: the title if this article currently is “Norwegian ban on Meta behavioral advertising extended to entire EU”

Either “Entire” shouldn’t be there, as Norway isn’t in the EU, or “EU” should be “European Economic Area” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Economic_Area).

My Norwegian is almost nonexistent, but I think it’s the latter. It makes more sense to my understanding of law (why else would a Norwegian claim extend to EU countries?) and the Norwegian title mentions “EU/EØS”, and that matches the Norwegian name of that Wikipedia page (https://nn.wikipedia.org/wiki/EØS)

If so, it also would apply to Iceland and Liechtenstein.

I'm not norwegian but I can read norwegian fairly well and the article says the European Data Protection Board has decided that the norwegian ban should be made permanent, and expanded to apply to all of the EU and EEA. It's a little light on detail, but that's the gist of it anyway.

You're quite right. "extended to entire EU/EEA" would be more correct.

Yeah, the article refers to EU/EØS which includes the non-EU members of the EEA, of which some union regulations may apply and be ratified into national law, like on food safety, energy markets or data privacy, while others can be vetoed and do not apply, like on fishing where Norway wants to control quotas in its own waters.

Nevertheless, in cases where EEA countries are part of union law, decisions can be appealed to EU courts, and decisions there will apply to the whole area.

At least I think that’s how it works, it’s a bit messy at times.

I agree it's a bit sloppy but understandable (for me) since legislation/directives is where we (Norway) is most aligned with the EU. As adapting EU directives is a part of the EEA/EØS deal (with some exceptions).

As for other central EU features like open market, currency, sovereignty (particularly naval), freedom of movement, we are on the outside of the union and I wouldn't sloppily consider or phrase us an EU country.

Totally insanity.

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