The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) Advocate General Athanasios Rantos has issued a non-binding Opinion in Case C-446/21 stating that where an individual's posts on social media about their sexual orientation, such posts, while 'manifestly public' should not be processed for the purposes of personalised advertising.
In his Opinion, Rantos also advised that the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) "precludes the processing of personal data for the purposes of targeted advertising without restriction as to time," and that judges should consider the proportionality over the length of time that personal information can be retained for the purposes of conducting personalised advertising.
In a statement responding to the news, Katharina Raabe-Stuppnig, a lawyer representing Max Schrems, said: "We are very pleased by the opinion, even though this result was very much expected."
Raabe-Stuppnig went on to say: "Meta has basically been building a huge data pool on users for 20 years now, and it is growing every day. EU law, however, requires 'data minimisation'. If the Court follows the opinion, only a small part of this pool will be allowed to be used for advertising - even if have consented to ads."
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