[nrjames]

What we are seeing is that the ad providers are considering themselves "controllers" under the GDPR and the tracking of device ad identifiers as critical to their business. Hence, their plan is to inform of the collection via a privacy policy but not to offer users the opportunity to affirmatively consent to allowing their advertising ID to be tracked. It's dispiriting.

[zaarn]

I'm pretty sure that this kind of behavior will be shot down by EU or Local courts. The GDPR contains parts where it explains what kind of reasons might lead to overriding of legitimate or critical interests.

[emidln]

If this is the case, I imagine a lot of profitable sites will be geo-banning EU users who don't subscribe to a payment plan as a non-profitable drain on resources.

[rmc]

Sounds like a good business model. Look at what US tech companies don't want to abide by EU law. Copy their app, but without all the privacy issues, make it free for all, incl EU. You already know what to copy, you don't need to do any research. Development and business risk is much less.

[emidln]

> business risk is much less

Minus the part where you're giving away your product for free with legally mandated nothing in return.

[zaarn]

That's a possibility.

The GDPR does forbid hinging service quality/availability on consent but I don't think it forbids putting it behind a paywall as alternative.

[Silhouette]

The GDPR does forbid hinging service quality/availability on consent

Although this is one of the areas where it seems some sort of challenge is inevitable. Requiring businesses to give people more control over data about them is one thing. Requiring businesses to do things that make no business sense, like providing services to people despite getting nothing in return, is something else entirely.

[zaarn]

It doesn't forbid you to provide free service, to my understanding, you can charge for the service but you can't provide a worse free experience when a user opts out.

Additionally, this does not affect data that is necessary to operate the service. When you run a GPS tracker app then it is entirely okay to ask for the right to process someone's position as part of that contract (as long as you don't share it with a third party).

[Silhouette]

There doesn't seem to be any problem with either totally free or paid services. The potential problem is with business models that are free in financial terms but instead rely on some form of data or advertising for their source of revenue.

[throwaway2048]

their interpretation isnt nessiarily going to hold up.