PINS
Communication Services
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This page is part of our public exclusion list — a transparency tool that shows which companies we screen out and why. It is not investment advice, and it is not an accusation. But it is subject to change as our understanding of the facts evolves.
Pinterest operates a social media platform whose business model is built on behavioral surveillance and targeted advertising. The company extracts detailed data on user interests, browsing habits, and interactions to build predictive models for ad targeting, a core monetization strategy. This surveillance apparatus functions without meaningful consent.
In October 2024, privacy advocacy groups filed a formal complaint with the French data protection authority, alleging Pinterest secretly tracks European users without obtaining lawful consent, allowing the platform to unlawfully profit from personal data. The complaint centers on the platform's processing of user data for personalized advertising without a valid legal basis under the GDPR. This follows the company's documented efforts in "Ads Candidate Generation using Behavioral Sequence Modeling," which explicitly seeks to enhance advertising systems by leveraging advanced behavioral tracking.
The platform's privacy policy outlines broad data collection practices, but the 2024 complaint indicates a gap between stated policy and operational reality regarding consent. Pinterest's economic reliance on surveillance-based ad targeting places it within the surveillance capitalism model, where user relationships are systematically turned into data extraction and prediction products for commercial gain.
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A digest of changes to our exclusion list — new additions, removals, and the evidence behind them. We review the list continuously as new evidence surfaces.
Companies appear on our exclusion list based on our investment judgment — not because they've done anything illegal. This is a difference of values and opinion, not an accusation of wrongdoing. Exclusion does not constitute a recommendation against investing in any company, and absence from the list does not constitute a recommendation to invest.
This information is provided for educational and transparency purposes only and should not be relied upon as investment advice. Data is drawn from independent watchdogs, NGOs, government registries, and Ethical Capital's ongoing research — see Research Sources for the full list.
Ethical Capital LLC is a state-registered investment adviser in Utah (CRD #316032). Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training.