When it comes to privacy nightmares, Pinterest is unlikely to be the first social app that springs to mind. But the visual discovery engine's use of tracking ads is the target of the latest complaint from European privacy rights non-profit noyb, which accuses it of breaching the bloc's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by failing to obtain consent from users to being tracked and profiled for advertising.

The GDPR allows for penalties of up to 4% of global annual turnover for confirmed breaches so such complaints can lead to substantial sanctions for tech giants.

While Pinterest has generally flown under the radar, with regard to online privacy issues -- especially compared to other mainstream ad-funded social services (such as Facebook) -- it's worth recalling that the company's tracking and profiling was pulled center stage in the tragic case of the suicide in 2017 of the U.K. schoolgirl, Molly Russell. She had pro-suicide content pushed into her social feeds by a number of apps, including Pinterest.

A 2022 'Prevention of Future Deaths' report by a U.K. coroner found that "negative effects of online content" were a factor in her death. It was the result of the ad-funded platforms' pervasive tracking and profiling of users.

In the noyb-backed complaint against Pinterest, which has been filed with France's data protection authority, the platform is also accused of failing to fulfill a GDPR data access request. It didn't provide information on the categories of data about the complainant that were shared with third parties.

As well as requiring that companies have a valid legal basis to process people's data, the GDPR provides individuals in the EU with a suite of access rights, such as the ability to request a copy of their information.

'Secret tracking'

Pinterest is relying upon a legal basis for processing people's data for ad targeting that's known as legitimate interest (LI). However, noyb argues this use is non-compliant w ...