Eight consumer groups from the European Consumer Organization (BEUC) filed on Thursday complaints against Mark Zuckerberg's Meta Platforms Inc. over "massive, illegal data processing" influenced by the "pay-or-consent" option in Facebook and Instagram platforms.
In a statement, the consumer groups argued that such an option works as a "smokescreen" to hide problems in processing data.
"Meta has tried time and time again to justify the massive commercial surveillance it places its users under. Its unfair 'pay-or-consent' choice is the company's latest effort to legalize its business model. But Meta's offer to consumers is smoke and mirrors to cover up what is, at its core, the same old hoovering up of all kinds of sensitive information about people's lives which it then monetizes through its invasive advertising model," BEUC Deputy Director General Ursula Pachl noted.
