Privacy campaigners filed a complaint this week against lifestyle website Pinterest, accusing it of secretly gathering personal data to use for targeted advertising.

Pinterest users are automatically opted-in to data sharing, in a breach of European Union privacy laws, Austria-based group None Of Your Business said in a statement received by AFP on Thursday.

The group filed the case on Tuesday in France after receiving a complaint from a French user of the platform, where subscribers swap ideas on home furnishings, travel, recipes and other lifestyle concerns.

“Pinterest is secretly tracking European users without asking for their consent,” Kleanthi Sardeli of NOYB said in the statement.

“This allows the social media platform to unlawfully profit from people’s personal data without them ever finding out.”

Pinterest told news agency AFP they had not seen the complaint yet, but a company spokesman insisted their approach to targeted advertising complied with European privacy law.

NOYB spearheads a campaign to have Europe’s 2018 regulation on data privacy (GDPR) enforced by complaining to data regulators in jurisdictions across the bloc.

GDPR imposes strict limits on the reasons a company or other entity can use to justify gathering personal data in Europe.

But many tech companies built their businesses by taking people’s data and using it to sell targeted advertising.

These firms initially relied on an exception that allowed them to bypass GDPR’s restrictions by claiming they had a “legitimate interest” in harvesting the data.

But EU regulators and the European Court of Justice have repeatedly ruled that “legitimate interest” cannot be used to warrant collecting such information for targeted advertising.

“It appears that Pinterest is actively ignoring a European Court of Justice ruling in order to maximise its profits,” said Sardeli.

The group is asking France’s data regulator CNIL to erase users’ information, impose a fine on Pinterest and oblige it to comply with the GDPR rules.
 

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