Facebook and Google Caught Manipulating Users to Bypass GDPR Regulations

• Despite GDPR regulations being in place all over Europe, Google and Facebook are manipulating their users to share their private data.
• The Norwegian Consumer Council revealed today that both Google and Facebook include UI elements in their services to make users accept privacy options that enable data collection.
• The NCC has accused both tech giants of using dubious language, privacy-intrusive default settings and hiding privacy-friendly choices in their apps and services to make things difficult for users.

The Norwegian Consumer Council has accused Google and Facebook of manipulating users despite the GDPR regulations that went into effect in Europe recently. The NCC has accused both tech companies of using confusing UI elements, leveraging dubious language and hiding privacy-friendly choices from their apps and services. The move makes it quite for users to prevent their personal information from being used by Google and Facebook for advertising and research purposes.

Google and Facebook’s settings have also been updated on their apps and websites to make privacy-intrusive settings default. The NCC has also accused both companies of threatening users with loss of functionality if certain settings are not enabled.

The Norwegian Consumer Council also analyzed Windows 10 while and revealed that the settings in Microsoft’s OS are quite favorable and privacy-friendly, unlike Google and Facebook. The report by the NCC concludes that Facebook and Google are both making it difficult for users to access the privacy-centric settings and it takes a lot more steps to disable certain anti-privacy settings unlike before.

Google’s privacy dashboard has been heavily accused by the NCC with the council claiming that the tech giant incentivizes sharing more personal information. The privacy dashboard now has multiple settings with dubious language, and it also discourages users from disabling any of the data collection features. Facebook has been accused of not giving users enough choices that benefit the newly placed GDPR data protection rights.

The NCC filed its report after an Austrian privacy advocate submitted a complaint against both tech giants hours into the GDPR regulations becoming active in Europe. If found guilty both tech companies may be fined 4% of their respective annual global turnover or $24 million each.

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