For many years now, EFF has argued that pervasive online behavioral surveillance, which powers the exploitative data broker industry as well as some of the largest online tech companies, should be banned. Companies should voluntarily make these changes to benefit their users, but EFF also strongly supports legislation that would require businesses to get consumers’ opt-in consent before collecting and processing this private behavioral data. Such legislation has stalled in the U.S. However, years after the General Data Protection Regulation, was made law in the European Union, Meta (Facebook)—one of the largest collectors of behavioral data in the world—has announced what could be a major step toward ending its behavioral advertising without opt-in consent.
This is, of course, not Meta’s choice. They sidestepped the GDPR using Terms of Service trickery for as long as they could. Later, Meta bypassed legal constraints by arguing that the personalization of content and advertising was necessary to provide an agreed-upon service to users. When this became untenable, they circumvented the consent requirement by asserting that the company had a legitimate interest in showing targeted ads.
While we welcome this shift, the company deserves few accolades
But as they write in today’s announcement, recent court interpretations of the GDPR, as well as the incoming Digital Markets Act (DMA), have forced their hand.
Implementation Matters
Meta’s announcement states that in the EU, the European Economic Area, and Switzerland, the company will “change the legal basis that [it uses] to process certain data for behavioural advertising… from ‘L
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