"Top EU court rules against Meta over Facebook targeting ads", 4 October 2024

Social media platforms must restrict the use of personal data for targeted advertising, to comply with the bloc's regulatory law, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on Friday. The ruling comes as a blow to social media giant Meta.

Meta collects digital data of users of its social media platform Facebook when they visit other websites and use third-party apps, which allows Meta to personalize advertising.

But under theEU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), companies are obliged to adhere to the principle of "data minimization," restricting the amount and duration of data used for advertising purposes. 

In Friday's ruling, the court declared that the aggregation, analysis and processing of all personal data without any time limit or distinction between the different types of data goes against the principle of data minimization. 

"An online social network such as Facebook cannot use all of the personal data obtained for the purposes of targeted advertising, without restriction as to time and without distinction as to type of data," the court said...

In turn, Meta said it that it "takes privacy very seriously." 

"Everyone using Facebook has access to a wide range of settings and tools that allow people to manage how we use their information," the company said in a statement...