Norway Bans Meta's Behavioral Ads on Facebook and Instagram

Norway's data protection authority, the Datatilsynet, has issued an urgent order banning Meta (formerly Facebook) from running behavioral advertising on Facebook and Instagram in Norway unless it obtains users' consent. The ban will last for three months and Meta could face fines of up to $100k per day if it continues to run behavioral ads without giving users a choice to deny tracking and profiling. The ban follows a ruling by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) that invalidated Meta's legal basis for microtargeting users with ads. The Norwegian DPA warns that invasive commercial surveillance for marketing purposes is a major risk to data protection.