Hey there.
So four and a half years ago, midnight, when the GDPR kicked in, we actually filed
three complaints against Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
So all Meta companies.
And the issue was that Facebook
used to use consent for using your data, for example, for advertisement.
And consent has a lot of conditions like it has to be informed,
unambiguous, specific, freely given.
You can withdraw it at any time.
So, for example, for advertisement they would have to give you a yes or
no option if your data is used for advertisement or not.
Now, Facebook didn't like that too much.
They wanted to use that data all the time.
And without asking people really.
So do you have the great idea of putting this consent clause
into their terms and conditions at midnight when the GDPR kicked in
and because they said this is now a contract and not consent anymore,
the laws for consent do not apply, but only for contractual law.
And the contractual law requirements are a bit lower than for consent.
Now, the question was, is that okay?
And can they simply take away all these nasty rights by doing this little bypass
And the DPC
the Irish regulator actually said that's fine.
They even had ten meetings
with Facebook to actually agree on all of that.
But all of that now hit the European Data Protection Board,
where the other regulators in Europe sit in,
and they actually now overruled the DPC and said, no, no,
this has to be separate consent and people actually have the right to say
yes or no if their data is used,
for example, for advertisement, which is great news
because people can actually say, I want to use social networking,
for example, but I don't want my data to be shared and used for advertisement
and other purposes and now have this choice in the future.
So I think a pretty good win and we're very
happy about all of that.