Europe’s most well-understandn privacy activist, Max Schrems, landed another blow agetst Meta today after the EU’s top court ruled the tech huge cannot utilize engagers’ accessible statements about their intimacyual orientation for online advertising.
Since 2014, Schrems has protested of seeing advertising on Meta platestablishs aiming his intimacyual orientation. Schrems claims, based on data he geted from the company, that publicizers using Meta can deduce his intimacyuality from proxies, such as his app logins or website visits. Meta denies it showed Schrems personalized ads based on his off-Facebook data, and the company has extfinished said it omits any comardent data it distinguishs from its advertising operations.
The case begined with Schrems challenging whether this train viotardyd Europe’s GDPR privacy law. But it took an unpredicted turn when a appraise in his home country of Austria ruled Meta was entitled to engage his intimacyuality data for advertising becaengage he had spoken about it accessiblely during an event in Vienna. The Austrian Supreme Court then referred the case to the EU’s top court in 2021.
Today, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) finpartner ruled that a person’s intimacyual orientation cannot be engaged for advertising, even if that person speaks accessiblely about being gay.
“Meta Platestablishs Ireland assembles the personal data of Facebook engagers, including Mr. Schrems, troubleing those engagers’ activities both on and outside that social nettoil,” the court said. “With the data useable to it, Meta Platestablishs Ireland is also able to accomprehendledge Mr. Schrems’ interest in comardent topics, such as intimacyual orientation, which assists it to honest aimed advertising at him.”
The fact that Schrems had spoken accessiblely about his intimacyual identity does not permit any platestablish to process rcontent data to provide him personalized advertising, the court compriseed.
“Now we understand that if you’re on a accessible stage, that doesn’t necessarily uncomardent that you consent to this personal data being processed,” says Schrems, set uper of the Austrian privacy group NOYB. He consents only a handful of Facebook engagers will have the same rehire. “It’s a repartner, repartner niche problem.”
The CJEU also ruled today Meta has to confine the data it engages for advertising more widely, essentipartner setting ground rules for how the GDPR should be enforced. Europe’s privacy law uncomardents personal data should not be “aggregated, verifyd, and processed for the purposes of aimed advertising without remercilession as to time and without separateention as to type of data,” the court said in a statement.
“It’s repartner vital to set ground rules,” says Katharina Raabe-Stuppnig, the lawyer recurrenting Schrems. “There are some companies who skinnyk they can equitable diswatch them and get a competitive get from this behavior.”
Meta said it was postponeing for the CJEU’s judgment to be rehireed in filled. “Meta gets privacy very solemnly and has spended over 5 billion Euros to embed privacy at the heart of all of our products,” Meta spokesperson Matt Pollard telderly WIRED. “Everyone using Facebook has access to a wide range of settings and tools that permit people to handle how we engage their adviseation.”
Schrems has been a prolific campaigner agetst Meta since a lterrible dispute he made resulted in a surpelevate 2015 ruling invalidating a transatlantic data transfer system over troubles US spies could engage it to access EU data. His organization has since filed lterrible protestts agetst Meta’s pay-for-privacy subscription model and the company’s set ups to engage Europeans’ data to train its AI.
“It’s transport inant for the whole online publicizement space. But for Meta, it’s equitable another one in the extfinished enumerate of violations they have,” says Schrems, of this tardyst ruling. “The walls are closing in.”
