Security News > 2024 > February > Meta's pay-or-consent model hides 'massive illegal data processing ops': lawsuit

Consumer groups are filing legal complaints in the EU in a coordinated attempt to use data protection law to stop Meta from giving local users a "Fake choice" between paying up and consenting to data collection.

Privacy rights folks weren't happy about it from the get-go, with privacy advocacy group noyb, for example, sarcastically noting Meta was basically proposing you pay it in order to enjoy your fundamental rights under EU law.

Today's GDPR complaints from BEUC argue that Meta's pay-or-consent model breaches data protection principles of the law, including the principles of purpose limitation, data minimisation, fair processing and transparency, with said processing enabling the company to "Infer private details about the consumer."

The group also claim Meta has no valid legal basis under the GDPR for its data processing for advertising because it relies on consent.

Lastly, the Euro groups are claiming in their complaints that the model is inherently unfair because of a "Lack of transparency, unexpected processing, [the] use of its dominant position to force consent, and switching of legal bases in ways which frustrate the exercise of data subject rights."

On February 1, 2024, Meta issued its "First-ever quarterly cash dividend." Meta made $131.948 billion of its $134.9 billion topline in fy2023 from advertising.

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https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/02/29/meta_gdpr_complaints/