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Meta is facing a major legal challenge and damages claim in Spain that argue the adtech giant ’s old age of fail to have a valid sound basis for process people ’s data for advertizing under European Union data security rules also constitutes a competition break for which they should be compensated financially .
AMI , an connection of newspaper owners whose more than 80 appendage include the publisher of newspapers including El País , ABC and La Vanguardia , is behind the suit . The litigants are seeking more than € 550 million ( ~$600 million ) for what they describe as Meta ’s “ taxonomical and massive non - abidance ” with the EU ’s General Data Protection Regulation ( GDPR ) .
“ Meta has repeatedly failed to comply with [ EU ] information protection statute law , ignoring the regulatory necessary that citizen must consent to the use of their data for advertizement profiling , as can be seen from the dissimilar resolutions of the European authorities competent in this matter , ” they save in a press release in Spanish [ here translated into English using AI ] .
“ The systematic and monumental use of personal data of exploiter of Meta program , dog without their consent throughout their digital browse , would have allowed the American caller to offer the sale of advertising space on the market based on an illegitimately obtained competitive advantage , ” they go on , stipulating their lawsuit contend 100 % of Meta ’s regional receipts was unlawfully incur .
Meta , the owner of Facebook and Instagram , washit with a amercement of € 390 million back in Januaryafter EU data tribute potency confirm carrying into action of a contract was not a valid sound basis for it to track and profile users to target them with ads .
That final GDPR determination — which took age to wind up its way though the regulating ’s contravention resolution and decision devising processes but is now being appealed by Meta in the Irish courts — confirmed the technical school giant star to be in rupture of the law of nature , create tributary status for private privacy litigations ( such as this one ) to be filed . So expect to see more such suit of clothes bulge out up .
AMI ’s challenge aim Meta ’s advertizement processing over the period since the GDPR come into personnel , in May 2018 , and up to the closing of July last class . However the complainants are not ruling out the hypothesis of extending the timeframe of their lawsuit to take story of what they dub “ Meta ’s persistence in its non - compliance ” .
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Since the January penalty , Meta has twice flip the legal basis it claims for ads processing in the region . ab initio itswitched to claim a basis called legitimate interests . However a separate ( long - running)competition and privateness challenge against Meta ’s superprofiling , fetch by Germany ’s competition authority — which hadpreviously been cite to the bloc ’s top court of law — led to a decision by the CJEU in July 2022 that invalidated that basis too .
The AMI ’s challenge references anOctober 27 “ urgent attach decision”by the European Data Protection Board — which was issuedafter a request by Norway ’s data protection authorityin light ofMeta ’s continued processing of personal data without a valid effectual basisin the monthsfollowing the CJEU decision — to explain the possible timeframe extension .
In November Meta change over toclaiming consentas the effectual base for its tracking - ads business in the EU . Howeverthe alternative it ’s forge for regional usersdemands they pick between pay it a monthly subscription for an ad - free version of its products or ‘ harmonise ’ to being tracked and profiled . This despite the GDPR stipulating consent must be “ freely yield ” in monastic order to be lawfully obtain .
Meta ’s modish attempt to judge to cut up its trackings ad business out of EU privacy rule is already under challenge — withprivacyandconsumers rights groups arguing the option it ’s offering user is illegal and unfair .
Although one notably irony here is that the use of a so - called ‘ cooky paywall ’ to gather consent to track is a feature of a number of European paper ’ site — which demand user either give a subscription to get at the journalism or agree to being tracked in exchange for non - paid access .
Privacy groupnoyb , which was behindthe original May 2018 GDPR complaint against Meta ’s legal fundament for trackingand is nowchallenging Meta ’s recent “ pay or okay ” approach to consent , has also been challenging newspapers over biscuit paywalls since 2021 .
Meta was contacted for comment on the AMI lawsuit .
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