Meta Settles Landmark Privacy Case With Massive Implications for Your Digital Privacy
In a significant development for your digital privacy, Meta has settled a landmark lawsuit in the UK, agreeing to stop targeting a human rights campaigner with personalized ads.
Tanya O’Carroll’s case against Meta highlights the growing importance of managing your digital footprint and understanding your rights regarding data privacy. Understand the background and implications of the settlement, how ad personalization works, and what you can do to keep your digital footprint secure.
Background of the Case
Tanya O’Carroll launched her lawsuit against Meta in 2022, alleging that the company had breached UK data laws by failing to respect her right to object to the collection and processing of her data for targeted advertising.
The UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) supported O’Carroll’s stance, emphasizing that individuals have the right to object to their personal information being used for direct marketing.
How Does Ad Personalization on Meta Work?
Shortly after learning of her pregnancy, Tanya started being targeted with ads for pregnancy products. You might be wondering how Meta could possibly have known that Tanya was pregnant, and served her relevant ads so quickly.
Meta has spent over a decade compelling advertisers to install “pixels” on their websites. Pixels are cookies, framed as a tool to help businesses run more efficient ads on Meta.
While pixels can indeed help businesses run “better” ads (by this, we mean more personalized), they also feed millions of signals to Meta from the rest of the web, giving Meta detailed intelligence on specific users.
If Tanya had researched pregnancy symptoms on a website with a Meta pixel installed – Meta would probably know about it, and consider her a potential customer for pregnancy products. Then, when an advertiser wants to serve ads to people interested in pregnancy products – Tanya will be one of those people, even if her pregnancy is known only to her. Well, her and Meta.
Implications of the Settlement
This isn’t just a victory for Tanya – but a victory for social media users all over the UK, and potentially the world. Meta has agreed not to use O’Carroll’s data for targeted ads, which paves the way for other users wishing to exercise similar rights.
The UK’s Open Rights Group has been quick to take action, building a tool to help stop Meta targeting you with ads. If you’re in the UK, spend a few minutes filling out the form and stop Meta’s invasive use of your data for free. This will benefit you, and ORG’s campaign against invasive data use.
Meta’s Future Plans
Following this settlement, Meta is considering introducing an ad-free version of its platforms in the UK, for a fee. Naturally, Meta is reliant on ad revenue which accounts for a vast majority of its income.
Notably, Meta’s response does not seem to address the root cause of Tanya’s case; the invasive capture and utilization of customer data. That will continue, even if they offer affluent users the option to buy an ad-free experience.
Managing Your Digital Footprint
As tech giants continue to fend off an onslaught of lawsuits, designed to protect you and your rights, the technology they use to monetize your time and attention continues to evolve.
They tried to side-step GDPR requirements for cookies (i.e. their Pixel) by rolling out alternative tracking technology, and they’ll maintain that ethos for as long as it’s profitable.
There are a few things you can do to help safeguard your digital privacy, regardless of Meta’s actions and lawsuit outcomes.
What Can You Do
Earlier, we mentioned the UK’s Open Rights Group (ORG). ORG have been campaigning for Tanya’s case, and with the resolution, they want to extend Tanya’s outcome to all UK users. If you’re in the UK, you can follow the steps they’ve laid out here to request Meta stops serving you personalized ads.
Your content on Facebook (and other platforms) is another signal that could be used to target you with invasive, personalized ads – but it doesn’t end there. Your public Facebook content could also be used for social engineering, phishing attacks, scams, spam, and more.
With our app, Redact.dev you can mass delete your Facebook content easily, in just a few steps. Bulk deleting Facebook posts, comments, and more is free up to the last 30 days – if you want to delete more, we have premium options available too.