The
joint letter by privacy activist Max Schrems' advocacy group
NOYB, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, Wikimedia Europe,
the Electronic Privacy Information Centre and others to the
European Data Protection Board (EDPB) comes as the EDPB prepares
to issue guidance in the coming weeks on the consent or pay
model.
This followed a request from the Dutch, Norwegian and Hamburg
privacy watchdogs to the EU privacy regulator for an opinion.
Meta reiterated that the service that applies to Facebook and
Instagram aims to comply with EU rules to give users a choice
whether their data can be collected and used for targeted ads
while users who consent to be tracked get a free service which
is funded by advertising revenues.
"Subscription for no ads' addresses the latest regulatory
developments, guidance and judgments shared by leading European
regulators and the courts over recent years," a Meta
spokesperson said.
"Specifically, it conforms to direction given by the highest
court in Europe: in July, the Court of Justice of the European
Union (CJEU) endorsed the subscriptions model as a way for
people to consent to data processing for personalized
advertising."
The 28 organizations warned that other companies may follow
Meta's lead.
"If 'pay or okay' is permitted, it will not be limited to news
pages or social networks but will be employed by any industry
sector with an ability to monetise personal data via consent,"
they said in the letter.
"In practice, this would successfully undermine the GDPR, the
high European data protection standard and wash away all
realistic protections against surveillance capitalism," they
said, referring to landmark EU privacy rules adopted in 2016.
"We believe that Meta, and other companies likely to follow
suit, are cognizant of the fact that a majority of users will
neither be able nor willing to pay a fee."
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Mark
Potter)
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