I think you'd have a hard time legally saying that they have to provide a service to users when that service is paid for by selling access to users via advertising, even if the user refuses to allow that access. It would probably qualify as "necessary for such performance".

Having the extra option to pay to remove ads (while I think this price is ridiculously excessive) is a pretty reasonable compromise. Although it also feels kinda icky in the sense that it means you're essentially turning privacy into a privilege for the wealthy. So I dunno, it's a tricky issue.

Techcrunch article is misunderstanding the meaning of freely given. It means not under duress and with full understanding. Paying for a service categorically doesnt contradict that.

However the odds of facebook explaining in plain english the egregious privacy breaches they do is unlikely so there's prob a get out there anyway.

Can't see how it breaches consent unless, as above they don't explain what they're doing to gather info for "personalised" ads.

Am lawyer, not gdpr /EU specialist though.

In fact, it’s not unlikely that the behavioural data of people who pay to opt out of being spammed with ads will be more valuable to data brokers.

True. This is why the AdNauseam extension doesn't simply "hide" ads, but it goes out of its way to actually simulate clicks for ALL ads, causing algorithms to be unable to more accurately profile you and making the pay-per-click model fall on its face. If everyone did that, advertisers would have to pay for completely meaningless clicks making it no longer worth it to advertise this way.

Though it's still not a solution to privacy, since it still gives some insight on your tastes by allowing them to know what websites do you frequently visit.

network effect – easy when it’s just you – but then you need to convince all your friends and family to switch over as well – and they’re not interested because it would mean convincing all their friends and family too … best you can hope for is a trust thermocline, a catastrophic event that’s more likely to leave millions of Facebook users floundering in anger than in curiosity at alternatives …

Dude you'd be surprised the amount of dumb mofos walking around you. I am 100% sure there will be some losers willing to pay that amount to use Facebook.

I haven't used anything Meta-related in almost 10 years and my life has failed to disintegrate. It's actually been lovely.

Even if you do not have a Facebook account, you are still being tracked through Ghost Profiles.

So no, you can not "just not use Meta".

They are so ingrained in the internet, that you can not get away, no matter hard you try.

As absurd as the price may seem, that is actually about how much money they make from selling user data. Of course, given their track record I don't feel inclined to trust this "pinkey promise" of not selling the data in some form anyways.

The thing is, using Facebook isn’t a right. They can charge for whatever, whenever, however they want. You agree to this when you sign up/access the site. You have the choice not to use it.

That’s what gets me with these comments/complaints. (Not trying to be mean). You don’t have to use facebook/Twitter/instagram etc. And the fact that people keep using these kinds of websites is beyond me, especially when they try to pull this kind of bs.

HAHAHAHA

...we can't even get corporate money out of campaign finances...

US government here, we buy the data from parties like Meta to save on the costs of surveillance and to get around laws that prevent us from spying on citizens. It's not in our interest to legislate restrictions

in 2022, they made US$113bn from ads. They have approx 3bn users so thats about US$38 per user per year.

No one is saying they shouldn’t be allowed to run ads. But that they should be allowed to run highly specific and targeted ads is not by any means a forgone conclusion.

Television, newspapers, ads out in the “wild” and whatnot. All manage without individualizing ads. And Facebook could as well. But it’s more profitable to say to hell with our users privacy, let’s individualize the shit out of those ads.

That’s the problem.

I would feel a lot better about it if the price was anything close to how much they actually make from people's data. Something like $30 per year according to Facebook themselves, in 2019.

But yeah, the notion that people should be entitled to all these online services completely free of charge while also not allowing it to be paid for through advertising is ludicrous.

The problem in this has never been (at any point) advertising.

Advertising is problematic too but not because of privacy issues.

Imagine you would need to pay for your right to protest or free speech as an example. This is brutal.