In an update to its user tracking policy, tech giant Meta announced to users its “intention” to comply with regional privacy regulations. ability to disable behavioral advertisingAn application that includes tracking their online behavior to serve targeted ads to users.
Currently, Meta claims to serve micro-targeted ads on a legitimate basis of legitimate interest. However, the company is under regulatory scrutiny in this regard and it now appears Change the approach to targeted advertising, at least for users located in Europe.
Meta will change its rules on targeted advertising
Meta has announced plans to move to a consent-based legal basis for targeted advertising. This means that users will soon have the option to opt out of behavioral advertising, i.e. all targeted ads that result from user tracking.
The move comes after an urgent response by the Norwegian data protection authority, which temporarily banned Meta from running behavioral ads in the country without users’ consent. It also responds to changing regulatory requirements in the region, particularly regarding the interpretation of: General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) EU’s leading data protection regulator Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC).
With these changes, Meta waits for the Digital Markets Act (DMA) to come into effectIt will introduce new rules on data processing for behavioral ads.
Meta states that advertisers can continue to run personalized ad campaigns to reach potential customers and grow their business, but users who disable tracking should not be affected by these targeted ads.
You will no longer be tracked without your permission
Privacy advocates who have advocated this change for years, They are cautiously optimistic. Max Schrems, a privacy activist who filed the original mandatory consent lawsuit against Meta in 2018, warned that the company will closely monitor how it implements the election. In particular, he underlined the importance of applying the consent requirement to all processing of personal data, not only for highly personalized or behavioral advertising, but for ad targeting.
While it took several years for regulators to force the company to reform its privacy-hating business model, the fact that it has finally happened A big victory for privacy rights in the EU.
According to several analysts, the primary reason Meta has opposed the use of a consent legal basis for data collection in the past is becauseIt’s very easy for app users to give up. Indeed, when Apple began asking iPhone users to allow apps that collect data in 2021, many users disabled this option, and Meta’s ad revenue was hit hard by the loss of access data to a large portion of their third-party data.
The blog post does not specify a specific date for this change to be implemented, and I am happy to talk about the “coming months”. The exact timing will likely be determined by EU regulators.
Attention The option to disable tracking will not be available to users located outside the EU., including the United States and the United Kingdom. Only users in the EU, European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland will have this option. We remind you that you can ask Meta not to follow you until the changes are implemented.
