423M USD fine convinced Facebook to stop targeted ads in Europe
Howdy surfers! Facebook made another update that will affect users in Europe. We are waiting for limitations in targeted ads, another wave of business managers (BM) bans, and unknown BM launching errors. Meta has already been ordered to pay a $423 million fine for displaying personalized ads without transparent user consent, and now the company is forced to drastically "cut" its targeting functionality and implement a consent form for users. It's easy to guess what this will lead to, but what details emerge in the updates, you can read with us, let's roll.
It is already known that the new plan on User privacy protection that the European regulator is considering will smash all the products in the Meta group. Zuckerberg's company is forced to allow FB&Inst EU users to opt out of personalized ads. From April 2023, advertisers can only run ads in broad categories, limited by age and wide GEO.
Meta representatives say that the targeting limitations will only affect political ads, but there is no direct mention of this in the regulator's prohibitions. Meta was already fined $423 million in January 2023 for illegally forcing users to receive personalized ads in their apps.
In an attempt to tear between two options, Zuckerberg's company restricts the functionality of targeted advertising and immediately complicates the way for users to opt out of advertising.
According to the WSJ: The act requires Meta to obtain individual consent from each user in order to serve interest-based ads. To opt out of such advertising, the user will have to submit an online form in which he objects to the use of personal data for advertising purposes. And then, the company will evaluate such objections before making changes.
At the same time, Meta allowed users to tweak their privacy settings to opt out of personalized ads for years. You can delete your activity history on different sites and apps, remove interests, etc. But the GDPR commission considered this method not transparent enough for the user.
"Interest" targeting is a powerful tool for advertisers to find their audience, reduce their ad budget and grow their company based on user behavior. And the ad targeting functionality limitations will hit small and medium-sized businesses hard, because companies will have to increase ad spending. Moreover, it is unclear what errors will come out in the BM after the next update.
