2 1/2 years, ago they opened up a loop hole for newspapers that they are explicitly allowed to do it (Either you pay, or when you use their free version, you must accept to be tracked for behavioural advertising).
Are they any better than facebook?
Some example news sites: www.zeit.de, www.spiegel.de
More information on this:
https://www.heise.de/news/E-Privacy-Verordnung-EU-Rat-fuer-V... (german)
And https://www.consilium.europa.eu/de/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.
The writing has been on the wall since 2018, when the GDPR came into effect. What's new is its enforcement. The DPAs are slow, but the law is clear, and eventually everyone will be forced to comply, if they want to do business within the EU.
> The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has instructed the Irish data regulator, where Meta’s European headquarters are located, to impose a permanent ban on Meta’s use of behavioural advertising within two weeks. The EDPB states that its decision is an urgent binding instruction to enforce the ban across the EEA.
Is the same happening at the newspapers?
It applies to everyone. It's just a consequence of GDPR. The regulator has found, after complaints, that Facebook's handling of personal data was in breach. Anyone who does the same thing as Facebook will be in breach. It's just that so far, either nobody is doing the exact same thing, or nobody has raised a complaint yet, or they're still in the regulator's backlog.
Also, you're hearing about it because it's Facebook. If it were a small unknown company you wouldn't have heard about it.
But obviously the GDPR applies to all newspapers, and if any particular newspaper is doing behavioural advertising using the same illegal methods as Meta they'll probably get fined much quicker. But hopefully most are by now not even using illegal methods but properly asking for consent.
You can look at the cases that noyb is fighting in court and you can see that plenty of them go against newspapers.
those that brought us the brexit and a couple more political turmoils.
I couldn't care less about personalized add for toothpaste.
but Facebook doesn't ban microtargeting political disinformation. classical newspapers do.
Facebook etc, while politically biased, keep profit as a target above their views, for the most part.
Brexit? I remember most news and ads were selling "no" yet "yes" happened. I recall the "no" voters either were of the category that wanted to vote against the political party in power, or of the type of voters having had enough to be told how to think.
As for the further turmoils you might be correct though. The lockdown ads campaign didn't go without some opposition but got sold to a large enough audience.
Unfortunetly because European cases usually do not involve punitive damages, it costs nothing to these actors to try their hand and keep up for as long as thier turn comes becasue there are a lot and they don't risk practically nothing for being found illegal initially. Only after being found illegal they risk fines for repeat violations.
I think you are confusing being opinionated "tinted" of sorts, as newspapers are, with microtargeting. a progressive newspaper will have progressively tinted reporting, and you get what you buy. and the newspaper is showing every reader the same content for the same article.
microtargeting means you identify personal traits and you present a content that fits your profile. probably pro brexit? contents that engaged you to go and vote and contents that you will more likely share with like minded people. probably against brexit? deter you from voting, by giving you a false sense of the outcome, or by frustrating you just enough. and so on.
I was shocked when I realized that political campaigns create dozens of variations of contents tailored for different combinations and varuations of personality parameters. the wasp lesbian gets another one their than the Catholic than than the black atheist.
and in this game Facebook keeps their own opinion out. they just offer means for the microtargeting, so the different messaging reaches their individual targets.
and that is the problem I have with it.