Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

tomshardware.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 200 posts

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#81

Post by tiagobertolo »

kaoD wrote: post #79
setgree wrote: post #34

Not the first time Spain has taken on a tech giant, but it didn't go so great with Google: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/new-study-shows-... "A study commissioned by Spanish publishers has found that a new intellectual property law passed in Spain last year, which charges news aggregators like Google for showing snippets and linking to news stories, has done substantial damage to the Spanish news indust…

Spaniard here. Google tax was just a ploy from our crony capitalist government to divert money towards publishers aligned with them (i.e. most major news outlets). Actually, the publishers are the ones who promoted it (lobbying for it long before it was even a law proposal) and the government just followed its masters (the two large media groups who own mostly everything). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AEDE > In resp…

How is your government capitalist? You are drowned in bureaucracy, taxes and debt not capitalism.

I am not taking this story as an example. Most of southern Europe countries are far from being capitalist.

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#82

Post by hellofunk »

wil421 wrote: post #51
aaron-lebo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes me weirdly happy as an American to see it happen. What happens when instead of massive, boring, soulless, mediocre corporations like Facebook serving 2 billion sharecroppers, we've got multiple or even dozens of smaller networks serving regions and niches? That has the potential for innovation we can't begin to understand. Facebook is akin to McDonald's not only spreading internationally but also replacing a…

>Facebook is akin to McDonald's not only spreading internationally but also replacing all other restaurants once it gets in a country. Sources for McDonlads replacing all other restaurants. Maybe you haven't traveled as much but for me I always check out local McDonalds, hardly actually eating there. One of the reason they have been successful is adopting local tastes. Costa Rica has Gallo Pinto in addition to fries…

You misunderstood OP's use of the word "akin."

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#83

Post by pc2g4d »

rublev wrote: post #72
pc2g4d wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is the way to understand it. Internet is feudal. Because law hasn't kept up with the transition to a new source of power (data + information flows) the familiar forms of feudalism are emerging. So how does the Internet transition to constitutional monarchy and democracy?

>So how does the Internet transition to constitutional monarchy and democracy? What does this mean? How you envision this happening?

No idea. Right now, the digital world exists at the behest and mercy of the physical world. But eventually the digital world becomes more important---political structures there determine the fate of the physical world, rather than the other way around.

Of course, this is a false distinction. The digital and the physical world are actually one and the same, viewed through different lenses. But eventually the network and services and content and algorithms of the digital realm will become central. Perhaps this is how it happens:

Facebook, Google, Amazon are proto-states. They are centers of power which dispense favors upon their "citizens" (users) in exchange for power over the users (data). At present they're primarily constrained by an environment of competition fostered by government. But over time they assume more and more functions of government. You can already "vote" in these corporations (as shareholders).

Suppose the government that currently constrains the corporations weakens, fractures. The U.S. splits up, for example. Then the boundary-crossing multinational corporations become the unified power centers. Now they are constrained only by each other. A great power struggle occurs in which the digital powers strive for dominance. There is a physical element---cutting fiber connections, etc.---but mostly it's about algorithms. Eventually the virtual space is partitioned into states just as the physical world.

In time, the "users" in each virtual state become discontented. They revolt and demand greater say in their governance. They live in virtual realities governed by the virtual states. Thus they have a great incentive to gain power over the governments. Thus democracy arises.

Anyway, this is all really far-out, weird thinking, and maybe it doesn't hold up. But something like this seems roughly plausible.

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#84

Post by ryandrake »

jacquesm wrote: post #25
ryandrake wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't happen often (at all?) and even if it did, what stops the company's leadership from starting a new, identical company with a identical board, employee list, etc. the next second?

Jail?

Sorry, I don't know how "losing your corporate charter" works. Who goes to jail?

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#85

Post by chiefofgxbxl »

return0 wrote: post #76

Facebook could just ask its users "Do you agree to be tracked, even without your consent?" and they 'd still say yes. If it mattered, people would have switched to one of the open source alternatives. This fine serves more as governmental virtue signaling than anything else.

Sort of... but I don't think most users (those who are not technically-savvy) know the extent to which they are being tracked. The web has existed in the mainstream for how long now, and some of the people I know are just catching on to the concept of IP logging...

Most web users don't know how deep the rabbit-hole goes, so to speak. Heck, even the Battery API [0] could be used to track users. A better question for Facebook to ask would be, "Do you agree to be tracked, even without your consent; we track your phone's battery, we track every web-page you visit via the Like button, we track ...".

[0] http://wccftech.com/firefox-cuts-battery-api-privacy-concern...

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#86

Post by parthdesai »

freyir wrote: post #67
parthdesai wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free Basics and Internet.org were two of the most disgusting moves i have seen from fb. I wonder if any of Indian workers working at fb questioned zuck about it at one of the his town-hall meetings ( if it is possible to do so).

> Free Basics and Internet.org were two of the most disgusting moves They're still disgusting moves. India prohibited Internet.org, but Facebook is actively pushing it in many other countries (Nigeria, Indonesia, South Africa, Bolivia, Bangladesh, Kenya, Guatemala, etc.).

I agree, but i'm Indian and i could relate more to what happened in India.

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#87

Post by alexasmyths »

dreamfactored wrote: post #73
alexasmyths wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are different cultures. Munich/Bayern - old school, conservative, traditional. Berlin - multicultural, hipster. Kind of like SF vs. Dallas. That said, they are both very German and it's a little bit of a stretch to say they are different markets. But Germany and Spain are night and day different and building for EU-wide is very hard. Not only are there different markets, but Europeans have strong cultures, which…

>kind of like SF vs. Dallas Which would make the US no more homogenous than Germany at least. > There are basically no places in Europe with a critical mass of early adopters for anything in tech Finland pretty much invented the mobile business (and the US still lags Europe), and European startup culture is very strong in London, the Nordics, and Berlin, (with Paris and Amsterdam also starting to make a play). Where…

Finland is smaller than Los Angeles.

Neither it, nor even Germany/UK/France have a critical mass of tech people or early adopters.

There isn't very strong 'startup culture' anywhere in Europe, unfortnately.

You listed basically all of the notable startups to come out of Europe in one sentence, which is not good.

I've lived all over Europe as well as the US, I'm aware of the differences.

There just isn't a strong cluster of tech-types, nor strong movements of early adopters for most things in Europe.

I will give you Skype though - Skype was a huge hit in Europe in 2004, especially because calling/long-distance rates were so crazy expensive - that's actually a pretty good example of a Euro-based startup hitting the local market well - i.e. 'in their pocket books' where it matters, in a way that kind of transcends national boundaries.

A startup that conquers fast/easy/cheap currency exchange, I think will likely do well in Europe as well.

But it's hard to build early adopters there, unless you hit it right.

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#88

Post by alexasmyths »

nradov wrote: post #80
alexasmyths wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it does help. A) They have massive operations internationally and hire a lot. B) Did you witness Microsofts dismantling of Nokia? That was a takedown of an entire ecosystem and huge gift to Apple and Google/Android as well. Paid for by cheap taxes overseas.

Nokia never had a real ecosystem. That's exactly why they failed.

Nokia had a massive eco-system of suppliers, tech providers, distributors, service providers.

For every one person working at Nokia, there was another, in a company, somewhere else selling to them, buying from the, distributing for them.

The same thing happened at BlackBerry.

I'm not talking about 'apps' - I'm talking about a 'business' eco-system and value chain.

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#89

Post by franciscop »

lioeters wrote: post #20
nradov wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those programs are mostly cargo culting and fail to address the essential aspects of an entrepreneurial environment. It's a way to seem like they're doing something rather than making the hard changes that would piss off some powerful special interests and rentiers.

One thing I hear about the startup environment in Europe is that investors are more conservative and risk-averse compared to those in the US. Would you elaborate on the "essential aspects of an entrepreneurial environment", and the hard changes that would need to be made to improve the situation? Also curious to hear more about these powerful special interests and "rentiers" - any specific examples in mind?

Try becoming a freelancer opening a company in Spain. Orders of magnitude harder than in the US, so for many recent grads is not a viable option at all.

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#90

Post by FridgeSeal »

baxtr wrote: post #55

Well 1.2 million euros fine is nothing to Facebook. That won't stop them from anything

Apparently that was for only 3 users.

It does however set a precedent, and if someone could take further evidence of this to court, on a much larger scale, those fines would stack up very quickly (as they ought to).

Post reply on HN