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

reuters.com

241–250 of 423 posts

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

#241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> taking our data Hang on. You're GIVING it the data. People want "free" services, so I'm genuinely curious what people actually expect is going to happen when they use WhatsApp. Is it just something provided benevolently? How does WhatsApp make money? Are people really so ignorant to think that they can get a free lunch? There's an implied quid pro quo -- you use a free service in exchange for providing data used to…

Maybe you don't remember, but WhatsApp used to cost money. I even bought it back then. So how can I opt out of this data sharing then?

Same for me, we paid WhatsApp to use a messenger that’s convenient, and isn’t Facebook.

And yet, this now happened.

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

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. You are not misunderstanding me. You are right that there are several European countries with a well spread normalization of using credit cards. In the European countries that I've spent most of my life, and which are also some of the biggest ones (Germany, France, Spain) have still IMO a poor acceptance of credit cards. -- In contrast, for example, in London you can pretty much live without cash whatsoever.

What is so bad to pay with Cash? It's anonymous and sellers don't pay extra charges to any US company (Visa, PayPal, etc.). Also most of the restaurants hide their revenues from tax authorities (it was recently in the news) - otherwise the prices will be much higher, like our neighbors have (France, Italy).

> Also most of the restaurants hide their revenues from tax authorities (it was recently in the news) - otherwise the prices will be much higher, like our neighbors have (France, Italy).

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding but are you arguing that it's good restaurants evade taxes because it keeps their prices low?

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

#243
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since 2004 they can fine up to 3 000 000 € [0]. Still not much for Facebook but better than a few thousands. More importantly, assuming the CNIL has a case, I assume Facebook has an obligation to comply (I guess they can't just pay the fine and keep doing whatever they were doing). [0] https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFT...

New EU privacy law has some rather more potent fines though: for intentionally violating some of the articles in the new regulations, the fine is 20m€ or 4% of revenue, whichever is the higher number.

the fine is up to 20m€ or 4% of revenue, whichever is the higher number.

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

#244
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I now own the database. You might own the database, but you will never own the personal data that is stored in it. And in France (and in the near future the whole EU with GDPR) this personal data has a specific set of allowed uses (explicit or implicit when the user provided the data) attached to it, that you cannot change without asking the owner of the data (the user). So you own the database, but you cannot use…

Seems like in that case it should be Facebook being reprimanded if they do something with the data that violates the original terms of use. "Sharing" is a bit misleading because as soon as Facebook acquired WhatsApp, they became the legal owners of the user database and data insofar as anyone can "own" user data. WhatsApp is Facebook.

But I think that's the point, WhatsApp doesn't own the data, and that carries over to Facebook. From what I gather, what they own is the database schema and whatever business logic is specific to WA/FB, and they 'lease' the data from users to populate their databases.

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

#245
post #151

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.

This is just protectionism at its finest. You better don’t think that would happen if FB was a french company. The industrial-governmental-complex is stronger in France than anywhere else in the western world.

This is no surprise. France once banned the importation of Japanese cars back in the '80s.

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

#246
post #165

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.

The reality is that while the EU does not like US tech companies to have user data (of Europeans), they themselves are quite happy to get and exchange that data with US and other agencies, including most importantly secret services. The exact data they don't want Whatsapp to share with Facebook is very likely in the exchanges between secret services. I could go into a long list about the privacy restricting laws pass…

The EU does not run a secret service or regulate the secret services of its member countries. You seem to be conflating EU trade policies and consumer protection, which is what's being discussed here, with the lack of consistency between whatever the EU is doing and what some European member countries are doing.

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

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. You are not misunderstanding me. You are right that there are several European countries with a well spread normalization of using credit cards. In the European countries that I've spent most of my life, and which are also some of the biggest ones (Germany, France, Spain) have still IMO a poor acceptance of credit cards. -- In contrast, for example, in London you can pretty much live without cash whatsoever.

What is so bad to pay with Cash? It's anonymous and sellers don't pay extra charges to any US company (Visa, PayPal, etc.). Also most of the restaurants hide their revenues from tax authorities (it was recently in the news) - otherwise the prices will be much higher, like our neighbors have (France, Italy).

I’m with you that Cash has the benefits of anonymity and no fees. However, it’s also inconvenient, specially when you are traveling. Digital transactions are also faster. — On a side note, that’s why I’m, besides all the hype, a strong believer of cryptocurrencies.

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

#248
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you mad? Miss out on a market of 740+ million of the world's richest consumers, twice the size of the US, the bulk of the western world and most of the developed economies on the planet?? No, that's absolutely not going to happen. Additionally, they'd never risk withdrawing from a market and letting a local competitor develop, take hold, expand, and attack them on home turf. Look at social networks and search eng…

"EDIT: I see you are fairly highly placed in Google. I'm quite surprised if you genuinely think what you wrote, given the raw numbers you must surely know, but given your legal training, I am not at all surprised that you would posture as if you were unaware of this." Character assassination, awesome! Please leave the company i work for this out of this, always. I never speak for my company on hacker news unless i sa…

I'm going to write in good faith, I hope to be read as such.

Firstly, you have not responded at all to my comment on your comment. A sensible and worthwhile discussion may come out of addressing those observations.

Secondly, crimes are in the eye of the judge, but as the accused perpetrator holding my own council, referring to your role in Google and your legal training was a kind of awe. I am a game theorist (the bridge between my applied mathematics and macroeconomics careers) and so I am well aware of the importance of signalling and posturing. I fully expect that a lawyer, schooled and practiced in the manner of approaching a debate, is equally attuned to how what is said and what is not said. The game theorist in me saw something closely resembling strategic pre-positioning, and entirely without second aims, I called it out for what it looked like. That is not character assassination (in my eyes) but just a tiny bit of critical reading of your prose.

If you really want your employer to be left out of this, you can signal that to us all by removing any references to Google on your (already impressive) profile. Or perhaps leave the reference to Google but also ad something to the effect of “leave my employer out of this".

Anyway, returning to the main argument: I doubt any internet behemoth can afford to pull out of the EU and lose access to 740 million affluent consumers because they'd instantly lose revenue that would ruin their bottom line while also giving local European companies a neo terra nullis to develop their products experimenting on their captive audience until they are ready to take the fight back to the behemoths’ home turf.

The internet blue-chips hate being excluded from anywhere because whenever they are excluded from somewhere their revenue drops and some new competitor starts to simmer.

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

#249
post #134

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.

I'm torn on this. On the one hand, I agree, the EU legislates privacy to a degree that no other political entity does as far as I'm aware, but on the other hand, they often do so with poorly designed policies. As an example, I'd point to the cookie notices that appear on almost every major website, which must have absorbed, globally, many careers worth of man-hours to implement while offering virtually no real-world…

About cookies, maybe on some sites some developers decided not to setup a useless cookies because of that law so it could have a small impact.

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

#250
post #151

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.

This is just protectionism at its finest. You better don’t think that would happen if FB was a french company. The industrial-governmental-complex is stronger in France than anywhere else in the western world.

This is probably true, but you may see it another way: the fact that FB isn't french makes it possible for french to get proper legislation, because it makes our government free of all economical or job pressure.

Also, I don't agree with the protectionism part. We (unfortunately) don't even have the beginning of a french competitor to facebook or whatsapp, even in the whole Europe. So asking whatsapp to comply can not possibly be seen as a way to favor the local brands. In that sense, it's completely different from what China is doing in the field.

Edit: ironicaly, the fact that FB doesn't pay any tax in France also makes our government 100% free of all pressure :D

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