Eight European consumer organizations have filed complaints against Facebook parent Meta accusing it of breaching the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) with its so-called “pay-or-consent” policy and opaque internal policies.
The organizations are all members of BEUC, the European Consumer Organization. Their complaints, publicized Thursday, argue that the large-scale consumer data collection practiced by Meta violates the GDPR, and that the company has abused its dominant market position to essentially coerce customers into accepting its terms. Each of the eight groups filed their complaints with their national data protection authorities, as there is no pan-European office to accept such complaints.