Comment on Instagram's monthly subscription

• jarfil@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  IANAL, but… I don’t think the law says that? My understanding is that the points are not related to each other:

  • You need prior explicit consent in order to gather non-essential tracking data
  • You can charge any amount for any functionality

  That would mean all these combinations would be allowed:

  1. Free, no tracking and no consent
  2. Free, prior consent for tracking
  3. Paid, no tracking and no consent
  4. Paid, prior consent for tracking

  If a site decides to only implement numbers 2 and 3… there wouldn’t be any conflict.

  Either everyone pays, or you have the right to privacy. Otherwise, long term, the internet will become divided and inaccessible to low income households. And that’s something the EU definitely doesn’t want to happen (net neutrality)

  Net neutrality doesn’t apply to services, only to carriers, who are considered more like utilities, but still aren’t required to offer a “free” tier. Services don’t need to offer an option accessible to everyone at all, they can specify whatever requirements they want (with only a few exceptions related to discrimination).

  Large social media platforms… is where current legislative efforts are in. Above a certain number of users, they’re getting defined more as utilities, and subject to more requirements, but still no “free” tier.

  The internet divide exists already: some households can afford 1Gbps symmetric with Netflix, HBO and Disney+… while others can barely affford a prepaid 120MB/month mobile connection (good news is, that’s just 1€/month)

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  • crandlecan@mander.xyz ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Sorry for the downvote, especially seen that case law hasn’t been settled yet nor if your, or my, reasoning is the correct one. I just hate your arguments though it looks like you work as a part-time Dutch judge :))

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    • jarfil@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Don’t be sorry, just don’t use downvotes to express your opinion… use your words.

      If you don’t like my arguments, go ahead and propose others.

      For starters, I see you referring to “case law”, which sounds like a US thing. In the EU, case decisions generally don’t shape the law, except Supreme Court decisions, and even then lawmakers can inform or reform those decisions. It’s usually more accurate to define a logical reasoning from the bare law, rather than expect decisions in one case to influence others.

      What do you base your reasoning on?

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      • crandlecan@mander.xyz ⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        I’m not an English native speaker nor a Lawyer. I base it on how I understood the law through articles in the years since it was introduced. We can go back and forth, but there’s nothing I can add that isn’t in the article I also linked in the replies. Thanks :)

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