LONDON — (AP) — The European Union’s top court said Friday that social media company Meta can’t use public information about a user’s sexual orientation obtained outside its platforms for personalized advertising under the bloc’s strict data privacy rules.
The decision from the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg is a victory for Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems, who has been a thorn in the side of Big Tech companies over their compliance with 27-nation bloc’s data privacy rules.
The EU court issued its ruling after Austria’s supreme court asked for guidance in Schrems’ case on how to apply the privacy rules, known as the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR.
Schrems had complained that Facebook had processed personal data including information about his sexual orientation to target him with online advertising, even though he had never disclosed on his account that he was gay. The only time he had publicly revealed this …