Tanya O’CarrollFacebook has agreed to stop targeting adverts at an individual user using personal data after she filed a lawsuit against its parent company, tech giant Meta.
Tanya O’Carroll, 37, who lives in London and works in the tech policy and human rights sector, said it would open a “gateway” for other people wanting to stop the social media company from serving them adverts based on their demographics and interests.
The Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK’s data watchdog, said online targeted advertising should be considered direct marketing.
In a statement, Meta said it provides “robust settings and tools for users to control their data and advertising preferences”.
Ms O’Carroll, who created her Facebook account about 20 years ago, filed a lawsuit against Meta in 2022, asking it to stop using her personal data to fill her social media feeds with targeted adverts based on topics it thought she was interested in.
“I knew that this kind of predatory, invasive advertising is actually something that we all have a legal right to object to,” Ms O’Carroll told Radio 4’s Today Programme.
“I don’t think we should have to accept these unfair terms where we consent to all that invasive data tracking and surveillance.”
It was when she found out she was pregnant in 2017 that she realised the extent to which Facebook was targeting adverts at her.
She said the adverts she got “suddenly started changing within weeks to lots of baby photos and other things – ads about babies and pregnancy and motherhood”.
“I just found it unnerving – this was before I’d even told people in my private life, and yet Facebook had already determined that I was pregnant,” she continued.
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation controls how personal information is used by organisations.
Ms O’Carroll’s lawsuit argued that Facebook’s targeted advertising system was covered by the UK’s definition of direct marketing, giving individuals the right to object.
Meta said that adverts on its platform could only be targeted to groups of a minimum size of 100 people, rather than individuals, so did not count as direct marketing. But the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) disagreed.
“Organisations must respect people’s choices about how their data is used,” a spokesperson for the ICO said. “This means giving users a clear way to opt out of their data being used in this way.”
Ms O’Carroll said that Meta had agreed to stop using her personal data for direct marketing purposes, “which in non-legalese means I’ve essentially been able to turn off all the creepy, invasive, targeted ads on Facebook”.
She said that she did not want to stop using Facebook, saying that it is “filled with all of those connections and family and friends, and entire chapters of my life”.
Ms O’Carroll said she hoped her individual settlement would make it easier for others who wanted Facebook to stop giving them targeted adverts.
“If other people want to exercise their right, I believe they now have a gateway to do so knowing that the UK regulator will back them up,” she said.
Meta said it disagreed with Ms O’Carroll’s claims, adding “no business can be mandated to give away its services for free.”
A spokesperson added: “Facebook and Instagram cost a significant amount of money to build and maintain, and these services are free for British consumers because of personalised advertising.”
“Our services support British jobs and economic growth by connecting businesses with the people most likely to buy their products, while enabling universal access to online services regardless of income. We will continue to defend its value while upholding user choice and privacy.”
Facebook and Instagram have a subscription service in most of Europe, where users pay monthly so that they don’t get ads on the platform.
The Meta spokesperson said that the company was “exploring the option” of offering a subscription service to UK users and would “share further information in due course.”
