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

251–260 of 423 posts

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

#251

Post by cJ0th »

JepZ wrote: post #239
cosarara97 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is the issue of the account. Whatsapp and Telegram are free (signal too?) and require 0 setup. With Conversations, you either have to pay for a conversations.im account, or open your browser and register on another server. I certainly can't imagine my grandmother doing that.

Well, there are a few more issue. None is a real show stopper but each would be worth to be solved in the sense of usability: - Explaining decentralization aka. 'Its like E-Mail: you need an address' - Choosing a good provider (reliable to stay for some time, server features) - Registering an account (many providers require a registration via browser) - Obtaining Conversations: -> Play store: and pay for it - 'yes, i…

> OMEMO: Should be enabled by default.

Yes, I completely agree. I couldn't understand why it isn't default either.

As for the other points, they're all true but like you say yourself they are no show stopper especially since most people have at least one friend or family member who can assist them. People who don't understand technology have resorted to those who do for decades. Getting an e-mail adress and configuring an e-mail program was no more complicated 10-20 years ago. It's a matter of minutes to set everything up.

The adoption problem isn't one of technology but mindset. If there were a heavy marketing department behind Conversations it wouldn't be a market leader but the market share would increase significantly.

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

#252

Post by pitaj »

coliveira wrote: post #58
abritinthebay wrote: post #39

The French system for protecting personal information should be a model for the rest of the world imo. (As an Englishman it pains me to say that) A company can never really “own” your data there. It merely can be lent it for very specific purposes. Using it outside of those purposes is punishable by law and that permission can be revoked. It’s very pro-citizen.

This should be the law everywhere. The US, on the other hand, believes it is OK to provide ALL your personal information to big companies, see the debacle of Equifax that exposed data from most Americans to hackers throughout the world.

Unpopular opinion: information should not be the property of anybody. You don't own your data, you own what it is stored on.

Copyright, Patents, and other IP law is invalid application of property rights and nobody should be able to say how anybody uses data they possess with the exception of preemptive contractual agreements.

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

#253

Post by notimetorelax »

gourou wrote: post #34

> European data protection authorities can only impose small fines at the moment, but a new EU privacy law entering into force next year will increase fines to up to 4 percent of a company’s global turnover. Would it be 4% of Whatsapp's or FB's revenue?

This is company’s global turnover, not product’s. So, up to 4% of the turnover in the entire company, since WhatsApp is wholly owned by FB, then it’s 4% of FB turnover. FB revenue for 2016 is 27B * 4% ~= 1B.

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

#254

Post by matt4077 »

nickik wrote: post #165
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.

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…

> Not to mention that they have a continent wide security service, special forces, many spy agencies and large armies.

The EU has no special forces, spy agencies, or army. Let alone a large one. Yes: the EU's member states have armies. But so do the member states of the CERN cooperation. That doesn't mean it's a particle accelerator with an air force.

Nor does the EU have any impact on criminal law, so you won't be arrested for anything anytime soon.

It is also a myth that EU enforcement of privacy rights (or antitrust laws) is used for protectionism. The number and sums of fines levied on companies from the EU/US/Asia, for example, closely track each country/regions economic activity in the EU. If anything, EU and Asian companies are hit more often than their US counterparts–possibly because the US actually has rather high standards for corporate governance.

> A further point relates to the problem that once states gain such control of how any company deals with data it is not gone be long before all companies are legally required to give standard access to all this data

Stuff like this is purely conspiratorial. And it doesn't even make sense: If there's a "you must share user data with the government"-law in the making, how do privacy rules make it easier to pass today than at any point in the past? With privacy coming up in the news any time the EU picks a fight with one of these companies, it seems as if their actions would only serve to educate the public about the value of privacy. And would such rules not actually lessen the value of the data amassed by companies, making it less useful to gain access?

> a view already expressed by many, many politicians

Hi there, Mr. President!

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

#255

Post by rconti »

juanmirocks wrote: post #211
raverbashing wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I heard, Uber works just fine in France > And in Germany you don't know yet what's living without cash and only with a credit card. That's on the Germans (especially Berliners), rest of Europe uses cards a lot more. And I'm glad the US finally took their head out of the sand and are using Chip Cards But yeah the cookie notice is pretty much useless (and I think it's been implemented badly by websites as well). N…

I live in Munich, Bavaria, and, to give an example, in most restaurants you will not be able to pay with a credit card. Having said that, you can pay once you reach a minimum amount with what they call an "EC-Karte", a sort of debit card.

Yup, this was quite surprising to me having travelled a fair bit but not been to Germany in 10 years or so. "I'm supposed to pay my dinner bill at a fancy restaurant.. in.. cash?"

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

#256

Post by rconti »

tomcooks wrote: post #198
gradys wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The cookie popup is terrible, I agree. Some pros: Being able to force social networks to provide me with a physical copy of my data is alone a reason to get an EU citizenship. I don't even use the social networks, i just demand my data every 3 months to FB, Tinder and Linkedin to punish them for being so aggressive in their spamming and tracking. Being safe from throttling, censorship and all the nice stuff that US I…

I'm an EU citizen and was not aware of this "demand for data" thing. What does physical copy mean? Are they going to send me 20 boxes full of papers?

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

#257

Post by notimetorelax »

hartator wrote: post #137
edran wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a nightmare, it's a responsibility towards the people who use your product, and the society that allows you to gain wealth from such usage. If you want to simplify the system, lobby for multiple nations to adopt a good standard, or move on.

So, are you going to report NK users to them if you host dissident contents? You have to comply to your local laws, not foreign laws.

You have a choice of not offering your services in these countries.

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

#259

Post by franze »

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #183
gradys wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The cookie provision will probably be changed very soon [1]: > Simpler rules on cookies: The so called "cookie provision", which has resulted in an overload of consent requests for internet users, will be streamlined. New rules will allow users to be more in control of their settings, providing an easy way to accept or refuse the tracking of cookies and other identifiers in case of privacy risks. The proposal clarifi…

10th of Jan. 2017, and nothing has happened.

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

#260

Post by vilmosi »

rconti wrote: post #256
tomcooks wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cookie popup is terrible, I agree. Some pros: Being able to force social networks to provide me with a physical copy of my data is alone a reason to get an EU citizenship. I don't even use the social networks, i just demand my data every 3 months to FB, Tinder and Linkedin to punish them for being so aggressive in their spamming and tracking. Being safe from throttling, censorship and all the nice stuff that US I…

I'm an EU citizen and was not aware of this "demand for data" thing. What does physical copy mean? Are they going to send me 20 boxes full of papers?

Not physical paper, but you can download all the data they have on you at any time if you want.
Post reply on HN