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

WhatsApp told to stop sharing user data with Facebook by French authorities

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 423 posts

Re: WhatsApp told to stop sharing user data with Facebook by French authorities

#111

Post by flexie »

mikeokner wrote: post #9

I wonder what the legal argument is behind this ruling. If one newspaper acquired another, couldn't the parent then market to the subsidiary's subscribers even if they continued to operate separately? The parent now owns everything anyway.

When doing business in the EU, Whatsapp and whatnot will have to abide by EU legislation, including EU data protection rules, EU consumer legislation and national rules on entering into and interpreting terms and conditions and other contracts.

Data may be used only for the purpose it was collected and transfer to other legal entities require consent. In May 2018, the data orotection regulation ebters into force and the mandatory rules will be even tougher.

Maybe one day one or more of those companies will even have to pay a bit of tax in the EU.

Re: WhatsApp told to stop sharing user data with Facebook by French authorities

#112

Post by endisukaj »

RestlessMind wrote: post #99

EU is one of my best hopes when it comes to privacy and really wish they start going after tech behemoths. I have given up on US authorities doing anything to reign them in. And policies in other significant countries (eg. China) would be even worse for user privacy.

Not much they can do against tech behemoths based in the US though. They can stop them from gathering EU citizen data, or at least approve laws that try to stop them but who knows what is really happening behind the scenes.

Re: WhatsApp told to stop sharing user data with Facebook by French authorities

#113

Post by mtgx »

teekert wrote: post #13
soziawa wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well with WhatsApp being so popular in Europe it is almost impossible to uninstall it.

I'm taking baby steps towards Signal. I think 10% now of my regular "apping" is on Signal. There is still some on Telegram as well.

Get people to use Signal as a text messaging replacement app (the default Android one isn't that great anyway).

Then, when they send you a message from it, the message will be E2E because you have Signal installed, too.

Re: WhatsApp told to stop sharing user data with Facebook by French authorities

#114

Post by kabes »

RestlessMind wrote: post #99

EU is one of my best hopes when it comes to privacy and really wish they start going after tech behemoths. I have given up on US authorities doing anything to reign them in. And policies in other significant countries (eg. China) would be even worse for user privacy.

A lot of privacy protection has been thrown overboard in the name of the fight against terrorism here in the EU.

Re: WhatsApp told to stop sharing user data with Facebook by French authorities

#115

Post by NoGravitas »

Jarwain wrote: post #88
cJ0th wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My advice would be Xmpp with OMEMO encryption. On mobile, you can get the Conversations App for Android via Fdroid (no google play!), for the iPhone there is Chatsecure and on the Desktop you can use Gajim. The advantage over Signal would be that 1.) you don't have to share your telephone number and 2.) you don't rely on a single service provider/accounts are decentralized (there are various services for free and pai…

If memory serves, XMPP is pretty battery intensive on mobile because one has to maintain a consistent connection to the server to receive messages

On my mobile device, Conversations isn't a top battery user. Google Play Services are much, much higher, and there's another chat app that's usually in the top even though I rarely use it.

Push notifications aren't magic -- they also have to maintain a consistent connection to the server, and re-activate it after a sleep. What having a push notifications provider like Play Services does is let you keep just one connection open for all apps. But adding just a few more doesn't make a big difference.

I also have an IMAP IDLE connection open all the time (K9 Mail), and it doesn't move the needle, either.

Re: WhatsApp told to stop sharing user data with Facebook by French authorities

#116

Post by user5994461 »

mikeokner wrote: post #9

I wonder what the legal argument is behind this ruling. If one newspaper acquired another, couldn't the parent then market to the subsidiary's subscribers even if they continued to operate separately? The parent now owns everything anyway.

You never allowed the parent to send you marketing. They shouldn't be allowed to.

Re: WhatsApp told to stop sharing user data with Facebook by French authorities

#117

Post by RestlessMind »

endisukaj wrote: post #112
RestlessMind wrote: post #99

EU is one of my best hopes when it comes to privacy and really wish they start going after tech behemoths. I have given up on US authorities doing anything to reign them in. And policies in other significant countries (eg. China) would be even worse for user privacy.

Not much they can do against tech behemoths based in the US though. They can stop them from gathering EU citizen data, or at least approve laws that try to stop them but who knows what is really happening behind the scenes.

I believe if EU's laws are widely publicized and proved to be useful in EU countries, then there can be enough political pressure in the US.

A tangential, but political relevant point: tech companies are in a particularly bad spot in the US because they are hated by both sides; republicans hate them because they are perceived as having liberal bias while democrats hate them because of tax avoidance, worsening inequality, job losses due to automation etc. So a political action against them would be easier to pull off compared to some other sectors like energy or finance.

Re: WhatsApp told to stop sharing user data with Facebook by French authorities

#118

Post by izacus »

mtgx wrote: post #113
teekert wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm taking baby steps towards Signal. I think 10% now of my regular "apping" is on Signal. There is still some on Telegram as well.

Get people to use Signal as a text messaging replacement app (the default Android one isn't that great anyway). Then, when they send you a message from it, the message will be E2E because you have Signal installed, too.

Signal severely breaks SMS handling on Android (it hijacks the store and stops reporting SMS to the OS, breaking backups, sync and other uses) so that's really not a good idea.

Re: WhatsApp told to stop sharing user data with Facebook by French authorities

#119

Post by eitland »

djsumdog wrote: post #75
teekert wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument is that WA always told us that they wouldn't share our data. This was a reason people signed up, you can't just "Oops we did it anyway" on so many people. At least not on People who have a government with their best interest in mind.

Did WhatsApp charge anything? I thought for contracts you needed some kind of actual dollar amount (even $1) for it to be binding? Is that very US-law specific or am I way off here?

They charged me USD 1 sometime after I signed up.

Ironically thats what I loved about Whatsapp:

I paid them, they provided an awesome messaging client.

No spying. No ads.

Re: WhatsApp told to stop sharing user data with Facebook by French authorities

#120

Post by shakna »

hartator wrote: post #25
kuschku wrote: post #3

» The CNIL said it had repeatedly asked WhatsApp to provide a sample of French users’ data transferred to Facebook but the company had explained it could not do so as it is located in the United States and “it considers that it is only subject to the legislation of this country.” « That's a very interesting quote from Facebook, and explains why the GDPR has a special section explaining that it also applies to foreign…

I am glad as an US company we don't have to comply to the dumb EU cookie laws. Yeah, we know every websites in the world uses cookies. Don't need a modal everywhere.

Common confusion over the cookie law.

* It was never about all cookies. It was about 3rd party cookies.

* An agreement was only necessary if you were transferring a user's private data to a 3rd party.

It was a huge privacy leak. The EU tried to shut it down, so the world's corporations decided to keep doing what they were doing without changing a thing, whilst mocking cookies, and by proxy, the user's whose data they were fleecing.

Post reply on HN