Max Schrems expected a large document when he asked Facebook to give him all of the information the company held on him.
The Austrian student of law was not prepared for the 1,200 page tome that detailed every friend request, invitation to an event, message, and poke he had sent on social media.
Facebook’s data collection was revealed in a disclosure made more than 10 years ago. This practice allowed Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, to target users and deliver hyper-personalized ads. Last year alone, this practice generated almost $115bn worth of advertising revenue.
Zuckerberg is credited with the invention and perfection of this new method for making money online, which has become known as “surveillance capitalism”. Companies collect huge amounts of information on consumers to determine what they want to purchase and when. They then send them ads for products and services to satisfy their desire.
This business model has also been a major success for Amazon, Google, and TikTok.
Could Zuckerberg be the one who finally puts an end to data collection?
Meta will offer Europeans access to Instagram without ads, if they pay PS11 per month. TikTok has also been testing an ad free model outside of the US.
These moves could indicate that tech companies are moving away from advertising and towards a subscription-based model. This shift will see users become customers rather than just data silos that are pumped with information.
This shift reflects a growing concern about the amount of information that companies have on people, and a more aggressive stance from regulators towards Big Tech.
Sandra Wachter is a professor at the Oxford Internet Institute. She says, “We’ve started to forget how important privacy really is.”
In 2010, Zuckerberg said that privacy is no longer considered a social norm, and that people are now willing to share their personal data.
The 25-year-old technology prodigy stated that people are now more comfortable sharing information of all kinds and more freely with more people.
He spoke at a moment when Facebook, which was only six years old, was still a novelty for millions of people to try out.
Recently, however, there has been a growing doubt about the sharing of information online.
Which?, a consumer group, conducted a survey in August. In August, a survey by consumer group Which? revealed that nearly 60pc UK consumers don’t trust social media companies. Similar numbers expressed concern about the way their data was collected and used by companies.
Public outrages like the Cambridge Analytica controversy and creepily targeted advertising campaigns have heightened consumer concerns about data security.
A darkening of public opinion has attracted the attention of regulators. In January, Brussels fined Meta a record EUR1.2bn after it moved European user data to US servers.
The EU’s top court handed down an important ruling this summer that could threaten Meta’s ability track users without consent.
Facebook and Instagram users can now stop Meta from grabbing vast amounts of data. The company will be limited to targeting ads only based on vague details such as gender, age and location.
Niamh Brenns, Enders Analysis: “Meta would not be doing this if the regulators didn’t force their hand.”
Could this be a turning point for surveillance capitalism
The industry is not convinced. Meta, who made more than $25bn in advertising revenue from Europe last year, is unlikely to abandon its business model.
Experts say that Meta’s actions were little more than a way to avoid legal issues and appease the regulators.
Luke Dixon, partner at Freeths law firm, said Meta and its attorneys were “quite clever” for offering an alternative model of business that allowed the company to circumvent EU court ruling.
He says, “They are saying either that people consent to personalized advertising targeted at them when they use our services or they will have to pay. “I believe they have found a way through.”
It is also clear that the consumer market has not yet fully embraced subscriptions.
Netflix and Disney have had success in converting their viewers into subscribers. Instagram and TikTok whose platforms thrive on ephemeral, user-generated content will find it difficult to charge for their service, especially during the current cost-of living crisis.
Christine Runnegar is the senior director of Internet Trust at the Internet Society. She says: “Seriously? Is viewing pictures of people’s food the same thing as streaming the Disney catalog?
There’s a big difference between the two because streaming services offer content to their users, and many actually produce their own TV shows and movies. Social media on the other hand receives content created by users.
Other attempts to hide social media behind a paid wall have failed. Elon Musk’s attempts to charge users of X, formerly Twitter, £11 per blue tick on X have been met with limited success.
In May, Neeva, a privacy-focused, ad-free search engine once considered a Google rival, closed its doors.
Burns admits that it is “hard to sell” people on paying to view user-generated content for services that are always free.
She said: “Very few people would pay to have an ad free experience. It’s not enough to make a difference compared to the huge advertising revenue.”
Richard Windsor, an analyst at Meta, says that the new subscription fee is too high and “seems to be deliberately priced for failure, creating a strong motivation for EU users to allow targeted advertising”.
Privacy campaigners worry that Meta’s product could set a dangerous precedent. It implies that consumers have to pay for privacy.
Professor Wachter: “Is it acceptable to pay for privacy protection, even though this is a human rights?”
She thinks that the tech giants are creating a digital divide between those with money and those without.
She says: “We shouldn’t equate the desire and interest of people to remain private with their ability to pay.”
Runnegar says it even more bluntly:
Data harvesting debate is a result of the rapid rise of AI, which has opened up new avenues for tech companies to make money off user data.
Meta’s vast database of user data makes it the perfect for training AI models that will further personalise ads. This technology can be used to plan campaigns and predict the behaviour of audiences.
According to Warc, AI-based targeting innovations will increase Instagram’s worldwide advertising revenues by a quarter in 2024. This amounts to $74bn.
The current cooling of personalised advertising could be only a temporary lull. To the dismay of Professor Wachter, data harvesting will likely continue.
Nobody asks: “Why are you so concerned about your property rights? She asks: Why are you so concerned about your right to not be tortured ?’,”? “Privacy, the one human right we must constantly defend,” she says.