Norway has succeeded in getting the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) to make permanent and extend across Europe its ban on Meta (Facebook’s parent company) harvesting user data for targeted ads on Facebook and Instagram.
Norway has succeeded in getting the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) to make permanent and extend across Europe its ban on Meta (Facebook’s parent company) harvesting user data for targeted ads on Facebook and Instagram.
Watch them cry foul, threaten to pull out, start a legal fight, then go nowhere like the abusive type they are.
I wish they would pull out. It’s fucking ridiculous that so much of Europe is apparently just ok with using a Meta product for the defacto texting platform (WhatsApp).
Eh, it’s not like we started using it because it was Meta’s. They bought it when it was already popular, and switching everyone to something else is difficult.
Yeah, WhatsApp was ported to basically every single platform that was relevant in 2009-2010 when it launched: iOS, Android, Blackberry, Symbian, Series 40 and Windows Phone. Supporting Blackberry and Nokia mobile OS which were huge at the time as well as the new smartphone OS’s was genius.
You left out webOS! Oh…
Sure I understand the reasons why it’s this way, but it doesn’t make it a good idea.
Oh, it’s Messenger in Hungary. Not that it’s any better, just saying.
I mean that’s basically the same difference. It’s owned by the same company.
But Messenger has always been Facebook, so those users “chose” a Facebook product. WhatsApp users mostly signed up before Facebook bought them (getting those users is why Facebook bought WhatsApp).
The choice to use a Facebook product was made for existing WhatsApp users by the sale. You can personally choose a different service, but then you also have to get all your contacts to make the same choice.
That is what I said, yes.
Meta is the cancer of the internet. The sooner they leave the better.
I hate that Meta bought it but I have to admit it is the best messaging app I have ever used for the last 10 years. I guess the enshitification will happen at some point.
Better than the US, at least in Europe you are not forced to buy a specific device just to be able to communicate.
Who knows, if Facebook gets severely limited by these laws, maybe we’ll all switch to Signal or something.
I use Android and I exchange text messages with iPhone users all the time. They don’t use iMessage with me because my friends aren’t assholes.
You’re not forced to buy a specific device there. They all text each other fine. You just don’t get fancy iMessage features if you’re on Android.
“Fancy” features like group chats, or sending pictures that don’t look like ass?
When every single alternative (other than RCS, ironically enough) just plain works. People just text, send each other pictures, participate in group chats, and it all just works, no matter the phone, computer, whatever, there are even just plain websites for many services.
You get all those features, just not with iPhone snobs who refuse to use acting but iMessage.
Ofc. But childish maneuvers are generally less effective in Europe where authorities are still authorities and not just the revenge actors with the bigger guns.
Yep - and they’re too big a market to abandon, meaning they’ll just roll over in the end.