Unfortunately, especially in the US, exercising your rights, or even just reading every paper you're expected to put your name to, not only constantly pisses people off for some reason, but also puts you at a significant disadvantage compared to the people that never push back in the interest of not making waves, or even because "whatever it's fine."

Machine translation of overview & 5.1 which is what the blog post is about (covers some other things as well): https://chatgpt.com/share/6a34732c-0fa4-83e8-aae1-95c25dd117...

[EDIT] Oh, there was actually official English decision available as well: https://www.datatilsynet.no/contentassets/59addbef9c1b48a28f...

The reply I received a few days later did me the favour of putting the violation on the record. Their position, in their own words, was that "in order to receive marketing / offers, it is a condition to be a member of the customer club." That one sentence is the whole case. They had taken a right I am entitled to exercise for free and turned it into the price of admission.

I don’t understand… it would be one thing if it said “receiving marketing/offers is a condition of being a member of the customer club” but that’s not what is being stated above… rather that being a member of the club is required to receive marketing — perhaps something has been misworded or lost in translation?

Those anti-privacy policies will state, that you grant the company and third-parties (so, anyone) permissions to use your data (including voice and image) for any purpose. (Of course, it is stated in a slightly obscure fashion, so a layman may not comprehend it.)

I wonder if there has been any similar action taken against those.

Thank you for sharing!

I don’t see how that implies “if you’re a member of the club, you must receive marketing / offers”. It only says “only members receive marketing / offers”

If you unclicked it, the 'connect to wifi' button greyed out and a notification appears saying that Opt In is required for wifi.

On the other hand, it is fascinating to be able to watch the destruction of europe and western democracy while it is happening! I imagine that this painful slide is what must have happened during the end of the roman empire. Now we're seeing the end of the european/US empire.

It's a shame, but it probably says more about Datatilsynet's capacity. Frankly it would be great if you could simply say "this company did something dodgy", provide proof, and immediately get results. But that's not the world we live in.

This, at least to my understanding, runs contrary to the spirit of the GDPR regulations. Permission has to be freely given which, when the alternative is paying a subscription, it quite obviously isn't.

[0] "Under Article 77(2) of the GDPR a supervisory authority is under a binding legal obligation to keep a complainant informed of the progress and the outcome of their complaint. It is not a courtesy and it is not discretionary - it is written into the law. I filed my complaint with IMY, IMY passed it on, the case ended in a multi-million euro enforcement action, and not one of the authorities involved thought to tell the person who started it."

One day, end of April when the grass is growing very rapidly, they presented me with a dialog in the app that basically said.

"We updated the EULA with the explanation "optimized wordings". Please accept."

There was no reference to the new or old EULA, and if I didn't accept I could not start the app and use my new mower. It was bricked.

I am now checking their compliance with GDPR. It is a tedious process because they keep stalling, but I still feel I have all the rights.

And I get a lot of help from chatgpt who works as a patient secretary that translates my "f-fck sake give me my stuff" into formal/friendly legalese with counter questions designed to be difficult to duck.

As of now, 2 months later, they have finally pointed me to "download personal data" in the application which gives me back a PDF with mower model, my email address and some push notification history.

But I know they store much more than that. And I think they know that I know. If nothing else my customer support history. But also for example a map of my garden.

the only way to stop the marketing was to cancel my membership of the club altogether

I have experienced this same thing with at least one other big company in Norway.

I could opt out of either SMS or e-mail, but not both, or I would not be able to keep the membership.

Unfortunately, I never made a note of which one that was exactly so I can’t name them and shame them on the spot.

Despite half-hearted attempts at stopping marketing emails now and then by individually logging in and opting out, or clicking unsubscribe links embedded in the email, my email continues to be flooded with marketing both from domestic and foreign companies that I’ve done business with. There is so many companies that even going through a handful of them at a time and unsubscribing there is a seemingly endless amount of companies that remain to unsubscribe from.

It is great to see that someone fights back, and that it is resulting in fines.

has any calculations been made on how much actual profit was made by these unlawful actions?

I personally never specifically consent to anything, yet get a ton of marketing emails. To most companies that send me those emails 1.8m would be a slap on the wrist.

Going through the hassle of policing individual company behavior is beyond silly and a giant waste of resources when you can literally just force the behavior at client level.

This is also basically the story of why GDPR popups are stupid. Set it at the client (browser) level, not on 100,000,000 individual websites done slightly differently every time and try to setup an enforcement dragnet to have expensive fights over misplaced commas.

This should have always been a browser setting and not a multi-billion dollar Kafka-esque nightmare of lawyers and regulators policing every company on earth, wasting Europe's productivity and resources.

It's like how the US makes you file your own taxes when for 99% of people they already know the amount you owe, and then randomly will decide to fine you if your calculated number doesn't line up with their number. It's giant waste of everyones time.

This decision can nevertheless be challenged before Norwegian courts in accordance with Article 78(1) of the GDPR. [0]

Time will tell I guess?

[0] https://www.datatilsynet.no/contentassets/59addbef9c1b48a28f...

Bro, you alright?

You can always not use their service. Plenty of alternatives out there.

It is mostly just a theater (like endless cookie consent dialogs in anonymous browsing), to employ more experts and bureaucrats.

EU is now pushing privacy laws that severely undermine privacy.

How refreshingly European.

I know, it's like complaining about JS etc. but it's like walking into an elevator and smelling very strong perfume. It's hard not to go "whew!"