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EU Targets Facebook's Ad System

Posted by Soulskill on from the subtract-those-ads dept.

redletterdave writes "The European Commission plans to put a stop to the way Facebook gathers information about its users, including their political opinions, religious beliefs, whereabouts and sexual preferences, and how the social network sells that information for commercial purposes. A new EC Directive aims to ban targeted advertising unless users specifically allow it, and to amend the current European data protection laws to ensure consistency in how offending sites are dealt with across the EU. If the European Commission has its way, Facebook would suffer big losses in advertising dollars that fund its site, which would further damage the company's plans to go public next year. Facebook has defended itself, claiming its advertisers target wide demographics like age and location, rather than specific individuals. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company denies outright that it misuses or mishandles user information."

13 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. The Internet should not be regulated by Hentes · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It's not just Facebook, many other companies like Google do this. But although this regulation has good intentions, like all attempts at regulating the Internet it will be counterproductive and unenforceable. The Internet is based on anarchy, that's what made it big and drives it today. Securing their data is the duty of the users.

    1. Re:The Internet should not be regulated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is not regulation of the Internet. This is regulation of advertising.

    2. Re:The Internet should not be regulated by dave420 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So Amazon should shut down, as no one can be expected to keep their credit card details secure on the net. Of course there should be regulation to protect people. Large websites, such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, et al. all can easily be assessed for compliance, and once compliant, a large part of the internet has been made compliant. How a user is supposed to actually *use* the internet without providing any data to it is going to severely limit the uses of the internet. We'll end up with LOLcats all over the place, and nothing of any actual use.

    3. Re:The Internet should not be regulated by SkunkPussy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      specifically the fact that it has become common practice for sites to treat opt-out as informed consent, when its well known that if opt-in was in place extremely low numbers would opt-in.

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      SURELY NOT!!!!!
    4. Re:The Internet should not be regulated by pclminion · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Securing their data is the duty of the users.

      I don't think you understand the power of data mining. Humans are very, very bad at performing inference on many variables. Computers are very, very good at it. It's true that people have a responsibility to safeguard their own privacy, but that's no reason we should have artificial intelligence programs scanning people's every online move to infer as much as possible about them. That's fucking scary, and it's scary that you don't think it's scary.

  2. Re:You can opt out by tepples · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The easier way to opt out is not to sign up for Facebook in the first place. Or what am I missing?

  3. It's ironic that in "socialist" Europe... by forkfail · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... steps are taken to ensure that Big Brother doesn't get too big.

    While here in the US, those who most love to cite Orwell also tend to want there to be no limits to what corporations can do, even when it's the corporations (far more so than the government) that are filling the power niches.

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    Check your premises.
    1. Re:It's ironic that in "socialist" Europe... by dave420 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's only ironic if you don't know what socialism is...

    2. Re:It's ironic that in "socialist" Europe... by forkfail · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Problem is, the end result of an unregulated free market is a monopoly, and without the counterbalance of government, corporations fill the role of government, and acquire the powers accorded to governments by the people. However, with this end result, there is no voting them out of office, and no one left to make laws to reign them in.

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      Check your premises.
    3. Re:It's ironic that in "socialist" Europe... by forkfail · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Just as socialism can lead to totalitarianism, so can capitalism.

      Totalitarianism is the result of the concentration of power. If this is at the hands of a socialist government, you get the USSR. If at the hands of a corporate state, you get Germany in 1938.

      It's about balance. And those who oppose all government in the US (sometimes for good reasons) never seem to have another counterbalance to growing corporate power. Remember, the second part of the famous quote about "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is that "men form governments to ensure these rights".

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      Check your premises.
  4. You're not facebook's customer people... by drachenfyre · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seriously. If you aren't paying for it, you aren't the customer. You're the product being sold.

  5. Re:Nanny State! by Sique · · Score: 3, Insightful

    According to your logic, we should get rid of the police, the justice and the military, because protecting yourself and punishing perpetrators is solely your responsibility.

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    .sig: Sique *sigh*
  6. Re:Why would FB care anyhow? by Bucky24 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not about to make a statement like GP did, mostly because I don't believe that the EU will collapse anytime soon, but I also am ignorant of its workings. So care to enlighten us?

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    All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents