When is consent not consent?

Germany regulators have ruled that Facebook is exploiting its customers through 'requiring' that they agree to their pervasive data collection practices. People are in other words, forced into accepting terms and conditions, in order to use the service. This challenges the idea of 'consent' as something that is not available in markets where there is no competition.

“When there is a lack of competition, users accepting terms of service are often not truly consenting. The consent is a fiction.”

It's a more pragmatic approach based on the fact that people have no idea to what they are trading when consenting to Facebook's terms and conditions, since there is a lack of transparency about what data and how this data will be used.

"As a result, most people don’t understand the massive trade-off they are making with their information when they sign up for the “free” site." Read more...