Slashdot: Norway Wants Facebook Behavioral Advertising Banned Across Europe

Norway Wants Facebook Behavioral Advertising Banned Across Europe
Published on September 30, 2023 at 03:30AM
Jude Karabus writes via The Register: Norway has told the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) it believes a countrywide ban on Meta harvesting user data to serve up advertising on Facebook and Instagram should be made permanent and extended across Europe. The Scandinavian country's Data Protection Authority, Datatilsynet, had been holding back Facebook parent Meta from scooping up data on its citizens with the threat of fines of one million Kroner (about $94,000) per day if it didn't comply. In August, it said Meta hadn't been playing ball and started serving up the daily fines. However, the ban that resulted in these fines, put into place in July, expires on November 3 â" hence Norway's request for a "binding decision." The July order came after a Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruling [PDF] earlier that month stating Meta's data processing operation was also hauling in protected data â" race and ethnicity, religious affiliation, sexual orientation etc. â" when it cast its behavioral ads net. Norway is not a member of the EU but is part of the European single market, and the CJEU, as Europe's top court, has the job of making sure the application and interpretation of law within the market is compliant with European treaties (this part would apply to Norway) as well as ensuring that legislation adopted by the EU is applied the same way across all Member States. Datatilsynet's ruling said the central processing of that data by the American company was putting Meta in violation of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation. A spokesperson for Meta said it was "surprised" by the Norwegian authority's actions, "given that Meta has already committed to moving to the legal basis of consent for advertising in the EU/EEA." It added: "We remain in active discussions with the relevant data protection authorities on this topic via our lead regulator in the EU, the Irish Data Protection Commission, and will have more to share in due course."

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