If you are a regular Facebook user, you can get targeted ads. Although Facebook’s many ads are annoying enough, Zuckerville’s targeted ads that target me based on my online activity are beyond annoying. All Americans should see Elon Musk’s tweet revelations.
The European Union (EU), is also irritated and finally taking action.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, was ruled ineligible to use its contracts with Facebook users and Instagram users to send them ads based on their online activity. This is one of the most significant blows to the digital-advertising sector by the European Union trading bloc. It’s time to stop Zuckerberg and his playground from doing the same thing in this country, as I stated in the headline.
Meta was also fined 390 million euros (or $414 million) by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission. The company claimed that it had violated EU privacy laws, claiming such ads were necessary for users to sign contracts. The fine was a small amount for Meta, but the claims and the possibility of future losses drew the attention of the Big Tech company.
Meta, the company that also owns Instagram disagrees with the ruling. It plans to appeal the allegation as well as the fine. According to the company, it rejected the notion that it would need to obtain consent from users under EU law. It also cited “a lack of regulatory certainty in this area”:
We are confident that our approach respects GDPR and are therefore disappointed in these decisions.
This has Mark Zuckerberg’s name all over it, sports lovers. If there’s one thing we have learned from Zuckerburg over the years, it’s that he often says one thing, even during congressional hearings, and then does another, including continuing to manipulate Facebook’s algorithm.
More information is available at the WSJ
The company has three months to comply with the two Facebook and Instagram decisions in Ireland. They can no longer rely on users’ contracts to justify behavioral ads. These targeted advertisements are based on an individual’s online activity. Meta could however request a stay of implementation while it appeals the decision.
The Irish privacy regulator stated that it made its decisions following a meeting of all the privacy regulators in the bloc. The board ordered the Irish regulator to make the decision, over objections from the Irish regulator, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier. Ireland is the leader in the enforcement of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (Meta) because the company’s European headquarters can be found in Dublin.
These Irish decisions are important because they could restrict Meta’s ability to use some data it has collected on its apps. Although the decisions do not specifically require Meta to ask users for their consent to target their ads with their activity data, they remove the contractual legal justification Meta currently relies on to do so. Privacy lawyers and activists claim that this leaves Meta with few options under EU law to justify such ads.
The headline stated that the U.S. should not only follow the EU’s lead but also up the ante. We have seen that Big Tech learns more about users by targeting them based on online activity. This could include far more than just the shirts and shoes they wear. The Federal Government and the Democrat Party are lurking in the background. Where will it all end?
Conclusion:
Multitudinous, irrelevant ads in one’s Facebook feed may seem like a problem of the first world or “Cadillac” to some. It is, but it is not. The revelations that Elon Musk acquired Twitter have been continuing. It has also led to the realization that Big Tech was not only in bed with the Federal Government but also with the Democrat Party to censor the news, facts, and opinions, all of which are beneficial to the left. Those annoying ads have taken on a new, more serious meaning.
It asks “What’s next?”
What other types of personal information is Big Tech collecting and passing on to the government and the left? Elon Musk and others will follow his lead, but time will tell.
