Mosseri attributed the postponement to a variety of issues. But he specifically noted rules preventing Meta from mixing the data it collects from users across products like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
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The DMA prevents companies as big as Meta from reusing a user’s personal data — including their name and location — across its products for targeted advertising without user consent.
I don't understand your point. Do you think that Meta should be obligated to provide their services everywhere?
If I'm running a company, and the laws in Italy would require more work to comply with than the value I would receive from being in Italy, how could you somehow possibly fault me for deciding that the best thing for my company is to just not be available in Italy?
they knew this going in, so my guess is that they took a shortcut with pushing instragram users into threads in order to make it successful quickly. and now they are quietly working on cleaning up in order to enter the EU market later.
The fact that it transfers data from Instagram is already a gigantic headache for Meta. The sharing of data between Whatsapp and other Meta properties, for example, has been blocked multiple times due to EU privacy laws.
Instagram being in the clear in Europe doesn’t automatically means that Threads is, and they clearly don’t wanna take any risk by enrolling EU Instagram users semi-automatically. Moreover, the connection between the Threads account and the Instagram account (i.e. you can’t eliminate a Threads account without eliminating your Instagram account) sounds like the main culprit here.
And it’s good that it is. It’s basically a forced user retention pattern that is in place only to favor Meta.
In other words, Threads is a can of privacy worms by EU standards.
The US is still a privacy wild west and Meta actively lobbies for it to stay that way. Threads is great example of why that is.
