EU regulators ban personal advertisements on Facebook and Instagram – IT Pro – News

Very good, we have now given them enough opportunities to comply with the law.
Time and again they promise improvement and then try to wriggle out of it.
Time and again the adjustments they make turn out to be a waste of time or in some way ineffective.

Yes, the subject is difficult and the law is not perfect and the world is developing faster than the law can keep up with, but the intention is clear. Just when it is clear that FB and Meta (and some others) will go to extremes to delay and avoid because their entire business model conflicts with our privacy laws.

They have become very adept at stalling for time and, if necessary, filing major lawsuits in the expectation that they can drag it out until it is irrelevant and the fine pays for itself. Directly from advertising revenue or indirectly through lack of competition.

All the nice laws about asking permission for data collection have not helped, the companies may comply with the letter of the law (and I doubt even that) but certainly not with the intention. That in itself is not wrong because that is how the system works, but it also means that we make new rules if the old ones do not comply.

In my opinion, banning personal ads was the only possible outcome. The power of personalized advertising is so great that these companies are really not going to change as long as they see the slightest chance of continuing with it. They could continue stretching for years to come. The more tightly the law is written, the more exceptions there are, and the broader the law, the more difficult it is to determine whether such a company is in violation. The idea that people can give voluntary and well-informed consent simply does not work, it is far too vague.

That’s why I think it’s a good idea to tackle it from the other side and ban personalized advertising altogether. It no longer matters what tricks they come up with to collect your data, they are no longer allowed to use it.

To be honest, I am pleasantly surprised that the regulators have taken this step. I didn’t expect it for the next 10 years and thought that a small disaster would have to happen before we could take this step.

Now it remains to be seen whether it will hold up, after all, supervisors are not legislators or judges. Nevertheless, I am glad that we are now playing directly for the end game instead of continuing to stick around with ineffective legislation. (That legislation is not wrong, by the way, just not enough).