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Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

#151

Post by FabHK »

olegious wrote: post #136
greggman wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I mind FB collecting data on my when using FB directly. OTOH today I read a 10 minute article on an unrelated site about loneliness. When I got to the end of the article an in page popup appeared that said something along the lines of "Liked by 9571 people including your friend John Smith". I was extremely creeped out. What right does FB have for knowing that I read some article on an unrelated website?…

Clicking "like" on an article is a action that you take only if you want that like to be seen by your friends. It is an inherently public action, don't see anything wrong here.

GP is not objecting to Facebook telling him that John Smith liked the article, too. He is objecting (I think) to the fact that Facebook knows who he is (as evidenced by knowing who his friends are), and knows that he just read that article (as evidenced by telling him who among his friends liked it).

And that is creepy, I think, and one reason I have all the good adblockers and tracking blockers and cookie cleaners that GP mentions installed, too.

Re: Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

#152

Post by pjc50 »

wolfgke wrote: post #128
sygma wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Using the messaging service is a voluntary decision Yes, it is voluntary, but it would be socially alienating not to be on that service. Here's a relevant talk [0] by Moxie Marlinspike talking about that. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG0KrT6pBPk&feature=youtu.be...

> Yes, it is voluntary, but it would be socially alienating not to be on that service. On the other hand: Do people who care about privacy very much really get along well with people who don't and force you in subtile ways to use such a messaging service? I rather think it's the completely different mindset of these two classes of people that is socially alienating and the message service is just a symptom (I believe…

Some of the people who care most about privacy are also very social: activists and politicians.

Re: Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

#153

Post by brogrammernot »

This could send shockwaves throughout the entire web.

If the premise of the complaint is that users connecting with a facebook account didn't explicitly give permission to use the data associated with it then I imagine a swooping change will have to happen with all services that use Facebook, google sign on as they'll have to explicitly gain user's consent to use the exact information they're mining.

You might go, oh well they already do, I doubt it honestly and they likely rely on implicit consent but I can see this having major shockwaves

Re: Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

#154

Post by micro_softy »

"... we have not forced anybody to use it."

What kind of an argument is that?

Send everybody a binding agreement that allows the company to collect data and use it for commerical purposes. Let the users decide whether to sign it.

Surely, if the above is a solid argument, then most everyone would sign it.

"Yes, we held out a carrot, but we did not force any rabbits to take it."

Re: Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

#155

Post by DannyBee »

Iv wrote: post #131
corndoge wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is false. Market dominance does not transform a proprietary product into a basic utility. What I mean is that simply because a proprietary product has a large mass of users does not mean the users have the right to demand that it be regulated like a public utility.

I disagree. Some of my clients and contractors use specific messaging platform (mostly skype, facebook and wechat) and I do not have the power to make them change. It is not fair to ask people concerned about privacy to pay a toll in terms of professional outreach.

"and I do not have the power to make them change."

This is pretty irrelevant. they have the power to change.

There are plenty of alternatives, in fact, you listed them!

Re: Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

#156

Post by DannyBee »

omouse wrote: post #116
corndoge wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is false. Market dominance does not transform a proprietary product into a basic utility. What I mean is that simply because a proprietary product has a large mass of users does not mean the users have the right to demand that it be regulated like a public utility.

It can in some cases and in some cases they should be turned into infrastructure. We've done the same with power plants and highways. And actually yes they do have that right! A corporation is given the privilege to exist by the state, that privilege can also be taken away.

"It can in some cases and in some cases they should be turned into infrastructure. We've done the same with power plants and highways. "

This is precisely because there are no real alternatives. In fact, when and if solar + batteries becomes an actual viable solution to powering you + your neighbors, ...

As for rights, yes, you do have the right, and in fact, personally, while i'm not in favor of trying to turn internet companies into regulated utilities, i am pretty much in favor of killing the LLC and going back to "officers and shareholders are liable" model that used to exist.

Re: Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

#157

Post by rmc »

danarmak wrote: post #77
rmc wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think dense legalise in a click through can count as "consent"

This is a real problem. What's the alternative? The TOS does need to express the desired purpose and to hold up in court if required. Some licenses are much simpler than others, but some are necessarily complex. The GPL is much shorter than most click-through TOSs, but an average user still isn't going to read it.

> The TOS does need to express the desired purpose and to hold up in court if required

Why? What if the "desired purpose" (desired by the company) is illegal? Then such a ToS/contract is not, and should not be legal. What the Data Protection agency is doing here, is saying that what WhatsApp/Facebook are doing is illegal.

> The GPL is much shorter than most click-through TOSs

The GPL is a copyright licence so doesn't require consent. It's a different type of "licence" from most ToS's.

Re: Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

#158

Post by briandear »

retox wrote: post #44
kriro wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I wonder if the strategy of announcing "due to the anti commercial data privacy demands in Germany we are forced to suspend all German WA accounts for the next couple of days" is ever discussed at Facebook. I'd be interested to see the political pressure it would create. I think the network is strong enough that people won't switch to other apps instantly and there would be a pretty big "just gimme back my…

My understanding is that the German people generally are very wary of data being moved around and collected 'unnecessarily'. I think a ploy like this would only backfire on FB.

And oddly, Germany requires to to declare your religion to the government. So I guess the question would be: what is considered necessary? If Facebook needs data to offer a free service, that seems necessary unless Facebook employees are volunteers and servers run on kitten sneezes and rainbows.

Re: Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

#159

Post by bogomipz »

jimmytidey wrote: post #125
corndoge wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is false. Market dominance does not transform a proprietary product into a basic utility. What I mean is that simply because a proprietary product has a large mass of users does not mean the users have the right to demand that it be regulated like a public utility.

Natural monopolies are very often regulated because of the negative side effects of not doing so. Which is to say, market dominance has transformed products into utilities in the past. You can argue that should not be the case, but, historically, it very much has been. There's surely a balance to be struck between incentivising firms to innovate by allowing them to earn profits when they develop a good product and al…

Can you give examples of the natural monopolies you are referring to?

Re: Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

#160

Post by makecheck »

It’s unfortunately a good example of how easy it is for products to change: in our current system, any nice thing is just one buyout away from becoming something entirely different.

It’s a bit like when a restaurant starts out good or bad, and changes under new management: it’s “the same” restaurant and yet it’s really not the same anymore, and consumers may or may not have gotten the memo. And it almost doesn’t matter if it goes through 3 managers, from good to bad and back to good, as the brand has already been tarnished and the damage is done.

I believe strongly that the hard work of hundreds of people shouldn’t be easy to screw up just because the wrong people bought you out, and yet this happens frequently: good projects are killed, and excellent work may end up going nowhere. This is why open-source projects have so much value: they are very difficult to screw up because there is always the option to fork it from a good spot and keep all the good work alive.

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