Through manipulative design, platform operators such as Meta, Amazon, TikTok or Google want users to agree to the widest possible pooling of personal data. This is one of the results of a study by the Federal Association of Consumer Organisations (vzbv). This violates EU law, according to which such actions must be prevented.
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Vizba has paid attention to services that are considered “gatekeepers” in the EU and to which the rules of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) apply, which have been in force since the beginning of March. Soon after, the EU Commission began to check whether Alphabet, Meta, Amazon and Apple had adequately implemented the requirements. In particular, it was about Google’s search, Apple’s rules for the AppStore, Amazon’s rankings and Meta’s payment model.
TikTok permanently shuts down its rewards program in the EUvzbv has changed in it Investigation (PDF) focuses on whether companies comply with the ban on coupling services (Article 5(8) DMA). For example, the vzbv looked at Facebook Marketplace. “In the vzbv’s opinion, the service cannot be usefully used as a marketplace without logging into a Facebook account; for example, users cannot contact sellers or post their own offers,” the consumer advocates wrote.
Playing on user concerns
They also examined whether the gatekeepers comply with data merging rules (Article 5 paragraph 2). The VZBV states that all of them make it more difficult for users to revoke their consent to the merging of data from multiple services. To obtain consent, all providers examined the manipulation designs used. These include the visual design of the user interface, the language used and the effort required to individually customize data merging. For example, Amazon, Google and LinkedIn (Microsoft) typically offer two buttons through which users can allow or deny the merging of data between multiple services. Consent for individual services can only be adjusted via a link next to it that is not designed as a button.
TikTok, the video platform of Chinese company Bytedance, specifically addresses users’ concerns about making the service chargeable if they do not agree to data merging. Meta suggests across various services that consent to data merging is entirely a question of user experience. If users do not consent, there is also a risk of harm. In some cases, users will only be able to use the offer to a limited extent.
According to its information, vzbv examined the gatekeepers between May 16 and June 26, 2024. To do this, they used information on the providers’ websites or apps and used a Samsung Galaxy S23 and a Google Pixel 8, each with Android 14, and an Apple iPhone SE with iOS 17.5.1. The devices were reset to factory settings for testing. Consumer advocates evaluated the information using a previously developed category system based on legal requirements.
(Application)
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