[stubish]

What you are asking for is the ability to sell your right to privacy. Laws generally don't allow you to sell or otherwise relinquish your rights, eg. selling your vote or selling yourself into slavery or accepting licenses in conflict with rights granted by local consumer laws. Some things we don't want assigned a value that can be traded. The EU has decided that the right to privacy includes not being tracked on the Internet, and any 'you can only use this if you give up your right or pay money' is not going to be allowed, because it ends up destroying that right for many.

[bluelu]

It's a double standart again.

Newspapers lobbied the EU that it s allowed for them (not sure if it was changed at the end). But if you go to a large european newspaper site (eg spiegel.de) then it explicitely asks you tha you pay to access it or you must agree to behavioral advertising. But facebook should not be allowed to do this.

[klabb3]

Yes and this should be pointed out. However, it’s imo far from a simple selfish lobbying move. If behavioral advertising and tracking is not allowed by anyone, it will even the playing field as ads return to being context-centric, as it should. It’s too early to say if news papers will try to weasel out an exception for themselves in such a world, imo.

More generally, you can want a change for everyone even if you are not currently doing what you’re preaching. You can play a game according to the rules and want to change the rules at the same time. While I agree this is a lower level of belief you can still want it, and argue for it, in good faith. Deviating from laws and even industry norms can be disproportionately costly, relative to your competitors, especially if you’re already struggling, which is true for most of legacy media.

Also, journalists are typically not the owners of media companies, and they sometimes cover issues with conflicts of interest with their owners. That’s a healthy thing.

[bluelu]

Newspapers weaseled already an exeption out 2 years ago, see https://www.heise.de/news/E-Privacy-Verordnung-EU-Rat-fuer-V...

[einarfd]

I've never seen anything like that in any Norwegian newspaper, and I would expect some of them to try if they thought they could get away with it. But I don't think they would at least not if the retoric coming out of Datatilsynet is anything to go by.

How German newspaper get away with that I have no idea. But you can't expect the Norwegian government to handle German language newspapers. If spiegel.de had a Norwegian presence though. Then it would be reasonable for Norway to have a look at it.

[seabass-labrax]

I loath Spiegel just as much as any other online privacy advocate, but I'd always assumed they were simply in violation of the GDPR. Can you provide any references indicating that this is the result of a special exemption due to successful lobbying?

[bluelu]

There is a german artcile about this here:

https://www.heise.de/news/E-Privacy-Verordnung-EU-Rat-fuer-V...

Read the part about cookie walls for newspapers:

Cookie-Wall soll bleiben

Wer auf seiner Webseite unentgeltlich Nachrichteninhalte verfügbar macht und das durch Werbung finanziert, soll dabei Cookies ohne Zustimmung der Nutzer setzen können. Eine "Cookie-Wall" als Alternative zu einer Bezahlschranke soll also zulässig bleiben. User, die nicht für Werbezwecke analysiert werden möchten, müssen gegebenenfalls ein kostenpflichtiges Abo abschließen. Diese Klausel wird an die Voraussetzung geknüpft, dass der User prinzipiell zwischen verschiedenen Varianten wählen können. Dazu kommen weite Spielräume für Direktmarketing auch via Bots.

[seabass-labrax]

Thank you. If I understand that article correctly, the European Council is proposing a carve-out in the GDPR for newspapers. That would make actions of Spiegel illegal at this moment and until the European Council's proposed exemption is implemented, as well as being illegal in Britain, where the GDPR was implemented originally but further European Union legislation is not automatically followed. Does that sound right to you?

[bluelu]

I'm no expert, but I think this was accepted 2 1/2 years ago and is already implemented?

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2021...

Look here (referenced pdf in the above url): https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-6087-2021-I...

(21aa) In some cases the use of processing and storage capabilities of terminal equipment and the collection of information from end-users' terminal equipment may also be necessary for providing a service, requested by the enduser, such as services provided in accordance with the freedom of expression and information including for journalistic purposes, e.g. online newspaper or other press publications as defined in Article 2 (4) of Directive (EU) 2019/790, that is wholly or mainly financed by advertising provided that, in addition, the end-user has been provided with clear, precise and user-friendly information about the purposes of cookies or similar techniques and has accepted such use.

[soco]

Many German sites do that too - nothing that I use daily to remember names, but I see that choice between ads and pay rather often. And I usually choose to leave, but not always...

[ralusek]

That’s like saying that using a site with moderation rules is asking you to sell your right to free speech, or that going to a nude spa is asking you to sell your right to privacy.

I have no problem with EU regulating what Facebook can do, in the same way I accept that some places might regulate against nude spas, I just take issue with the way you framed it.

[anilakar]

Please dont bring free speech into this. As everyone very well knows, it trumps everything else including basic human rights in a certain country.

[DangitBobby]

It is a basic human right.

[stubish]

Going to a nude spa necessitates giving up some right to privacy. You expect the minimum necessary to provide the service you want. But you certainly don't want them filming you and posting the pics on the Internet. This is similar to how the GDPR is fine with storing personal information required to provide the service to the customer, but not storing unnecessary information or using it for other purposes. Going to a nudist bar would be a choice that necessitates giving up some right to privacy, but giving free drinks to women would be coercion and probably illegal in many courts.

Free speech is always in conflict with other rights. You don't get to say whatever you want on a forum someone provided and deemed to be child friendly for example. Or rant about atheism and corruption of the clergy on a bible studies forum. Or commit fraud. This sort of problem is why free speech is not considered a right in many countries and instead a luxury. You get to say what you like but have to suffer the consequences. But your right to free speech stops at my right to not hear you. And your right to pay your employees what you want stops at their right to fair pay. The conflicts and the grey areas need mediation and government regulation.

[ralusek]

> Free speech is always in conflict with other rights

Within the liberal framework, most strongly embodied by the US, rights are fundamentally meant to be negative rights. In other words, they are better conceived of as limitations placed on the state. Freedom of speech means the state cannot dictate what you can or cannot say. The right to privacy means the state is limited in its capacity to rummage through your mail, enter your house, etc.

Europeans tend to view what Americans view as privileges as rights. Positive rights.

> Free speech is always in conflict with other rights. You don't get to say whatever you want on a forum someone provided and deemed to be child friendly for example. Or rant about atheism and corruption of the clergy on a bible studies forum.

That isn't what freedom of speech is as it's conceived in the liberal framework. In the US, there is no law preventing any of those platforms from regulating speech within their own domains. The right simply ensures that the state is itself incapable of regulating speech.

> Going to a nude spa necessitates giving up some right to privacy. You expect the minimum necessary to provide the service you want.

You could argue that no spa necessitates nudity whatsoever. It isn't simple to define the boundaries of what is minimally necessary in order to provide a service. Imagine that you're watching a streaming service which plays ads. If the streaming service collects some information related to your demographic, watching habits, etc, and is able to serve you targeted ads that pay 5x more than if they were anonymous/general ads, many consumers would happy accept that if it meant that they had to watch only half as many ads.

You act as if there is just a relatively straightforward right to privacy, but what's really happening is that the state would be putting (somewhat arbitrary) limitations on the boundaries of what two parties are allowed to consent to (in this case, between the viewer and the streaming company).

American morality tends to favor limitations on the state rather than limitations on the way two consenting parties may engage with one another.

[pests]

But as you say, they aren't asking you to give up your rights (because of the 'or pay money' clause). You can just stop using it. If you want to use it and not give up rights, pay money. What is wrong with that?

[piaste]

The "or you can give up your rights in exchange for a discount" part is the problem. You can't buy a car by agreeing to be a slave for 90 days either.

Commercial subscription services that don't violate your privacy are 100% fine, and incidentally, as xp84 noted, are way healthier because the user is at least a customer. (I dream of a day where companies spend $0 on advertising and instead all commercial websites and social media are run on small subscriptions or frictionless micropayments and the only person they need to keep happy is the customer.)

Of course "free" services have a massive advantage over paid ones. If Meta can profitably run Facebook just on generic ads without tracking, like a newspaper, that's allowed too. But if they can't, well, tough shit.

[pests]

> You can't buy a car by agreeing to be a slave for 90 days either.

Sorta??? It's not like I volunteer my time to my job.

[tagyro]

I don't agree - you can't just stop using it. Given the size of facebook (or google, amazon, microsoft, apple etc), they are ingrained in our (tech) life in such a way that one has to invest a - not negligible - amount of work to stop using them. To sum it up: companies want to have "power", but without having "responsibility".

[dadadatamen]

You can. It's almost quite literally an effort of 30 - 60 min per day or week or month, depending on how skilled you are at keeping things convenient, meaning self-hosting services and maintaining them.

[tempaccount1234]

You can, but if you decide to stay away from messengers like WhatsApp, you miss out. Which is OK unless you have kids in school age.

Once a service gets so big, that you are practically forced to join, regulation seems like a very good idea

[dadadatamen]

Regulation is imperative.

Missing out is an illusion.

Enough ways to get around the benefits of using WhatsApp for business. Enough customers hate using WhatsApp to communicate with businesses.

[hackideiomat]

teach your kids signal?

[logifail]

> teach your kids signal?

Getting your own kids to switch messenging client is fairly trivial. Then they can talk to you (and to each other).

The network effect means you then have to persuade other kids, and parents, and sports coaches, and music teachers and ... to switch.

(Source: have three kids and we have exactly this issue)

[theonlybutlet]

And say getting a job, when everything is through LinkedIn?

[dadadatamen]

You can get the contact details of the hiring manager on the companies website or call their front desk or ask in an E-Mail to info@xyz or support@xyz or even by asking around.

and there are various ways to prove your value that are not based on networks

[theonlybutlet]

You won't know unless you saw the listing, which these days is put on LinkedIn.

[pests]

What? They are not a neccessity. You are speaking like technology is food and water.

I have family my age and older who don't never use Facebook and barely interact with technology and they get by life just fine.

[graphe]

You CAN stop using them. Do you WANT to? Are you unable to?

Social media addiction isn't a right, and just because you have a share to Facebook or Twitter integration doesn't mean you have to use either.

[interactivecode]

Thats like saying, if you don’t like lead in your paint. You can just use different paint. Like yeah sure, but still some regulations that stop them from putting lead in paint is a good thing

[disiplus]

It does not work like that, the country made some laws. For example what safety rules does the car have to follow to be legal in us. You cannot just say, if you don't like that the car does not have a backup camera doesn't use it.

[stubish]

In the case of the right of privacy, what is wrong with your suggestion is that it is what we have today, and we end up where we are today. You must sacrifice your right of privacy to use Facebook, Twitter and others. And using Facebook, Twitter and others is not a choice for many people. It is forced on many (most?) by rules of employment (some schools require teachers to be on Facebook for example), economic reasons (must be on social media to be economically competitive), or just social (all my friends are there, so I need to be there too). Choosing to retain your right of privacy is a sacrifice, which is to say that maintaining your right of privacy has a cost. The EU has said that there should not be a cost to preserving what it sees as a right. Not everyone can afford to pay that cost.

[anilakar]

>> Laws generally don't allow you to sell or otherwise relinquish your rights,

> If you want to use it and not give up rights, pay money.

Ahh, we are not asking you to sell. We are asking you to give them in exchange for services.

[A_non_e-moose]

> >> Laws generally don't allow you to sell or otherwise relinquish your rights,

> Ahh, we are not asking you to sell. We are asking you to give them in exchange for services.

That's covered in the "or otherwise relinquish your rights" part. Privacy is a right, you can't sell or relinquish it, in exchange or donated, doesn't matter.