The non-profit digital rights group NOYB (None of Your Business) has filed a formal complaint accusing Pinterest of violating the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The complaint, submitted to France’s data protection authority (CNIL), claims that Pinterest has been tracking and profiling its European users for advertising purposes without proper consent — a fundamental breach of EU privacy law.
This move by NOYB raises critical questions about Pinterest’s compliance with the GDPR and could potentially lead to hefty penalties. Under the GDPR, companies guilty of infringing on data privacy laws can be fined up to 4% of their global annual turnover.
NYOB’s complaint concerns Pinterest’s reliance on user tracking to fuel its advertising model. According to the digital rights group, Pinterest’s practice of collecting personal data for ‘personalised ads’ relies on an inappropriate legal framework.
The social media platform uses what is called ‘legitimate interest (LI)’ as its justification for processing users’ data, meaning users are tracked by default unless they actively object.
In a statement about the complaint, NYOB lawyer Kleanthi Sardeli noted that Pinterest’s actions amount to “secret tracking,” allowing the company to “unlawfully profit from people’s personal data without them ever finding out.”
The European Court of Justice (CJEU) recently ruled against this interpretation of LI, stating that companies like Pinterest must seek explicit consent from users for such data processing. Despite this ruling, Pinterest continues to track European users without permission.
Another issue that NOYB raised is about Pinterest’s handling of data. When one Europen user asked about her data by filing multiple reports, it was met with incomplete responses, which violates Article 15(1)(c) of GDPR.
“She received a copy of her data on the same day but quickly realised that it didn’t include any information about the recipients of her data. Even after two additional requests, Pinterest failed to provide details about the categories of data that were shared with third parties,” NOYB reports.
NOYB argues that Pinterest’s incomplete responses reflect a broader failure to uphold the transparency requirements in GDPR. The organisation has called on regulators to take decisive action by ordering Pinterest to delete improperly obtained user data and imposing a fine to deter future violations.
NOYB has recently sued Mozilla for tracking Firefox users without consent, and X for unlawfully processing users’ data in nine European countries for training its Grok AI. The group has also sued Xandr over GDPR compliance and data inaccuracies, Microsoft over illegal tracking of children, and OpenAI over inaccurate data concerns.
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