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Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

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Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#131

Post by parito »

alexasmyths wrote: post #87
dreamfactored wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 clus…

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

^ This is what Revolut is doing right now in europe

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#132

Post by Iv »

aceofspades19 wrote: post #124
Iv wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you remember the people pasting a paragraph saying things like "I do not consent to be tracked and my informations to be sold"? It was met with snark by a lot but I really wonder if it would not be legally valid in several countries.

Maybe if you didn't already agree to the EULA. While it's true that some EULAs are of dubious legality, I doubt a court would say that the facebook EULA is totally invalid, but a random post on facebook is legally binding.

The EULA says "Accept these conditions and if you fail to meet them, we termninate the service". The post says "I refuse these specific conditions (that were probably invalid to begin with) and if you disagree, just terminate my account."

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#133

Post by pvaldes »

dingaling wrote: post #129
markyuckerberg wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I'd really like to know why it's better for me to have no internet at all than some but not all? Because under the pretext of giving you internet, Facebook is creating shadow profiles about me. Now I would like to know why it is more important for you to get stuff for free than my privacy? All you need to do, of course, is get Facebook to promise me that it won't create these shadow profiles about non-users. At th…

Free Basics puts no obligation on its users to visit or use Facebook at all. They can browse Accuweather, BBC News, Bing, Wikipedia and other localised websites all day long if they please. For free.

It seems that facebook saved information also about people without a facebook account each time they visit a web displaying a sort of 'like' buttons so even if you just browse those webs you may be watched and 'classified' by facebook (without agreing with any terms of contract document with facebook).

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#134

Post by jokoon »

Mahn wrote: post #2

I don't have anything against regulations and fines to keep monopolistic companies in check, but that being said, as an European, I can't help but feel a little appalled that there's so much focus on this and so little on actually creating European Googles and Facebooks.

You can't really snap fingers and make those kind of company appear out of nowhere.

Those companies exist because of american entrepreneurship culture, and how corporate laws work in the US. US companies have a lot of freedom to throw money right and left to do things because IT moves fast, and that is just not possible in europe at all.

Also those companies are flagships, but they also are criticized because they are big brother type agents. They centralize data from users of the entire world, and let's be honest, it gives an information advantage for american interests (meaning geopolitics, economics, business).

Those companies are not just products, they also are a big advantage for three letters agencies and business intelligence as well. I'm sure a similar european google or facebook would either be bought by US company or see its employees offered jobs at facebook/google.

Europe is not interested in having such companies, because europe doesn't have investors to throw money like megalomaniacs at anything that pops up. Europe is more traditional.

So yeah, the US is the center of the world, there are geopolitical reasons for it, and they are logical reasons why it is also the case for flagship IT companies.

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#136

Post by cabalamat »

ionised wrote: post #118
Mahn wrote: post #2

I don't have anything against regulations and fines to keep monopolistic companies in check, but that being said, as an European, I can't help but feel a little appalled that there's so much focus on this and so little on actually creating European Googles and Facebooks.

I'm not really interested in a European version of those companies. How would that be any better?

It would -- at least in theory -- be easier for the European peoples to regulate them so they act in their interests.

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#138

Post by tripzilch »

serhei wrote: post #30
t1o5 wrote: post #13

Facebook tried to pull a similar gimmick in India called "Free Basics". It was dealt with criticism and the regulatory authority in India was smart enough to reject the proposal. Reliance, one of the sheepskin corporation in India wanted to embrace Free Basics with Facebook but could not. Now Reliance is trying a similar act with "Jio" cellphones. Its a good thing that many countries are realizing that US based monop…

To paint a less rosy picture, many countries are good at keeping out US based tracking / social media monopolies because they want to support their own tracking / social media monopolies. It's kind of a "well, duh" moment that China is going to support its own Internet services rather than let that data be collected by people in the United States. Russia has a similar government-backed Internet services ecosystem goi…

The alternative of all the data siloed to a single world power, the US, is not better.

I was going to add ".. unless you're American", but I'm not even sure if such a concentration of power would be a net neutral (or good) in the long run, for any citizen, US or elsewhere.

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#139

Post by klez »

topbanana wrote: post #137

Isn't it up to the EU to enforce its laws, rather than member countries?

No, the EU sets the laws, member countries implement and enforce them. If they don't, you can appeal further up the EU. See here https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-making-process/overview-la...

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#140

Post by olla »

RivieraKid wrote: post #32
otherme1 wrote: post #27

Make no mistake: this is a form of taxation. Our (i'm spanish) minister of economy has been very imaginative in the last 4 years to find new sources of revenue.

Hardly. It is an insignificant amount in terms of Spain's tax revenue.

Maybe they are probing the courts and setting up the price with 3 persons, with an intent to start pumping money if the case is successful. There are near 20 million Fb users in spain thus the math says there is 400k€ * 20M users = 8 000 000 000 000€ to be earned in their minds.
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