E.U. Court Limits Meta's Use of Personal Facebook Data for Targeted Ads

Europe's top court has ruled that Meta Platforms must restrict the use of personal data harvested from Facebook for serving targeted ads even when users consent to their information being used for advertising purposes, a move that could have serious consequences for ad-driven companies operating ...

Meta Given Deadline to Address E.U. Concerns Over 'Pay or Consent' Model

Meta has been given time till September 1, 2024, to respond to concerns raised by the European Commission over its "pay or consent" advertising model or risk-facing enforcement measures, including sanctions. The European Commission said the Consumer Protection Cooperation CPC Network has notified...

How to Opt Out of Comcast’s Xfinity Storing Your Sensitive Data

One of America’s largest internet providers may collect data about your political beliefs, race, and sexual orientation to serve personalized ads...

Google's New Tracking Protection in Chrome Blocks Third-Party Cookies

Google on Thursday announced that it will start testing a new feature called "Tracking Protection" starting January 4, 2024, to 1% of Chrome users as part of its efforts to deprecate third-party cookies in the web browser. The setting is designed to limit "cross-site tracking by restricting websi...

Meta sued over forcing users to pay to stop tracking

Meta is required to get users’ consent in Europe in order to show them targeted ads. For this reason, Meta has to provide European users with a way to opt out of behavioral advertising or face fines totalling $100,000 a day. Behavioral advertising are ads tailored to someone’s browsing habits and...

Meta and TikTok consider charging users for ad-free experience

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Meta is considering charging its European users around $14 a month if they don't agree to personalized ads on Facebook and Instagram. On mobile devices, the price for a single account would be higher because Meta would factor in commissions...

Four EU telco giants will start asking users if they want personalized targeted ads

They say you can't have too much of a good thing. Unfortunately, this applies to ads, too, whether you think they're a good thing or not. Soon, Europes four biggest telecommunication companies--Germany's Deutsche Telekom DK, France's Orange, Spain's Telefonica, and the UK's Vodafone Group--will...

Irish Regulators Fine Facebook $414 Million for Forcing Users to Accept Targeted Ads

The Irish Data Protection Commission DPC has fined Meta Platforms €390 million roughly $414 million over its handling of user data for serving personalized ads in what could be a major blow to its ad-fueled business model. To that end, the privacy regulator has ordered Meta Ireland to pay two fin...

TikTok Postpones Privacy Policy Update in Europe After Italy Warns of GDPR Breach

Popular video-sharing platform TikTok on Tuesday agreed to pause a controversial privacy policy update that could have allowed it to serve targeted ads based on users' activity on the social video platform without their permission to do so. The reversal, reported by TechCrunch, comes a day after...

Check 'My Activity' Dashboard to know how much Google knows about you

It's no secret that Google knows a lot about you. The company tracks almost everything you do on the Internet, including your searches, music you listen to, videos you watch, and even the places you travel to, and it does this for targeting relevant ads to its users and better improve its service...

Google Pays $17 Million to Settle Privacy Violations

Thirty-seven states are claiming a privacy victory against Google and will split a $17 million settlement from the search giant. Google, which generated $2.97 billion in online advertising revenue in the third quarter, was deliberately bypassing default privacy settings in Apple’s Safari browser ...