EU ruling may force Meta to have users opt-in for targeted ads

Meta has been handed a total of €390 million in fines by European data authorities for the way it gets consent from users for their personal data.

EU fines are nothing Meta hasn’t dealt with before – in 2022 alone, the company faced a total of €747 million in fines for offenses ranging from data breaches to cookie consent to violations of children’s privacy. But they also come with an order for compliance that would change how the company informs users about data collection.

Meta has relied on “contractual necessity” to justify collecting data for behavioural ads. The concept is one under GDPR which allows companies to collect and use data if it is necessary to conduct the business it was contracted to do – such as an online retailer collecting credit card info and addresses in order to process and ship an order. Meta has argued that its data collection is necessary, as it is what allows for a personalized experience on the platform, including the ads users see. The company also said that, as data collection is part of the terms and services, it is part of the contract users agree to when using the platform.

The European Data Protection Board has now formally rejected that argument, saying the personalized ads where not inherent to the experience and that users had “insufficient clarity” on how their data was processed. Meta has been given three months to make its services GDPR compliant – which many believe will require users to explicitly opt-in to data collection and behavioural ads – though the company says it plans to appeal the ruling.

Teads promotes a new president

Programmatic ad platform Teads has promoted Monique Pintarelli to president of its North American operation.

Pintarelli, recently the company’s chief revenue officer, will continue to report to Teads co-CEO Jeremy Arditi and expand her purview from commercial leadership to full P&L responsibility for the U.S. and Canada, according to the release. Pintarelli joined Teads in 2018 as SVP of west coast sales.

Last summer, Teads named Karen Wang as managing director, its new lead for Canada.

Roku is the most popular streaming platform in North America

Roku Canada has released a full year of audience and viewing numbers that establish a new milestone in active accounts and streaming hours.

Globally, active Roku accounts are in excess of 70 million, a jump from 60.1 million from Q4 2021. Streaming hours were 23.9 billion in Q4 and 87.4 billion for the full year, a 19% year-over-year increase, making Roku the number one streaming platform in the U.S., Canada and Mexico based on hours streamed according to December 2022 Hypothesis Group data.

Featured image by Image by Nokia621.