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Meta’s ‘consent or pay’ tactic must not prevail over privacy, EU rights groups warn
Ahead of a full meeting of the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) this week (April 16 and 17), which is expected to produce guidance on a controversial Ahead of a full meeting of the European Data Protection Board, which is expected to produce guidance on a controversial tactic used by Meta to force web users to consent to tracking, almost two dozen civil society groups and nonprofits have penned an open letter urging the bloc's data protection bodies not to endorse a strategy intended to bypass EU privacy protections for commercial gain.
However it looks relevant to the DMA too, as the newer market contestibility law builds on the bloc’s data protection framework — referring to concepts set out in the GDPR, such as consent. This means guidance from the EDPB, a GDPR-focused steering body, on how — or, indeed, whether — “consent or pay” models can comply with EU data protection rules is likely to have wider significance for whether the mechanism is ultimately deemed compliant by the Commission in its assessment of Meta’s approach to the DMA. Privacy rights group noyb and others have warned that a green light for the tactic won’t only reward Meta either: They suggest it’ll open the flood gates to apps of every stripe and type to leverage economic coercion to force users to be tracked — gutting key planks of the EU’s flagship data protection regime.
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