With a recent out-of-court settlement with a UK human rights campaigner, Meta is potentially setting itself up to undermine a key component of its monetization model – targeted advertising.
The deal between the US tech giant and Tanya O’Carroll of the Foxglove Legal non-profit, which guarantees that she will no longer be targeted with ads on Meta’s platforms nor have her data used for direct marketing purposes, is interpreted as a possible precedent.
This instance could be referred to by millions of other users of Meta but also of other Big Tech platforms and services, who might seek the same outcome for themselves.
The system works by collecting personal information from users, in effect carrying out a type of surveillance, to then “share” the huge datasets for a variety of purposes, including targeted advertising.
Despite the outcome being hailed as a “landmark” in some reports, it’s at this time impossible to say how many people might in reality be willing and able to undertake similar threats of legal action – and, if such cases were to proceed to trial, how courts in different jurisdiction might treat them.
Here, O’Carroll based her accusations against Meta on the UK’s version of the GDPR (by and large “inherited” from the EU) – a set of rules put in place to protect personal data. Under the regulation, individuals are entitled to object to having their information used for targeted advertising.
UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) intervened in the dispute on O’Carroll’s side – described as a “rare” move – which no doubt helped the activist achieve the desired goal.
By settling shortly before the case was to reach court, Meta avoided the risk of this instance eventually becoming an actual legal precedent, but also, in arguments presented in its defense during the pre-trial part of the litigation, revealed how it would fight any similar future demands.
At least where GDPR(s) are in effect, the key claim Meta makes is that it does not target individuals, but groups, with advertising. And this also provides another insight into how the gargantuan, murky, and extremely lucrative system functions.
The topic of spinning off various parts of the huge tech companies comes up again, in reaction to the settlement – while Meta now maintains that it currently already provides “robust settings and tools for users to control their data and advertising preferences.”
