WhatsApp told to stop sharing user data with Facebook by French authorities • Hacker News Board

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

#301

Post by _fizz_buzz_ » Tue, Dec 19, 2017, 11:59 PM UTC

franze wrote: post #259

_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's in the press release, also (see link above):

> With the presentation of the proposals today, the Commission is calling on the European Parliament and the Council to work swiftly and to ensure their smooth adoption by 25 May 2018, when the General Data Protection Regulation will enter into application. The intention is to provide citizens and businesses with a fully-fledged and complete legal framework for privacy and data protection in Europe by this date.

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

#302

Post by kodablah » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 12:20 AM UTC

theptip wrote: post #294

kenoph wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If smaller players do not want to comply with EU regulations, it's fine with me (I hope I got your point, but I'm not sure). If you want to do business in a place, you have to follow the local regulations. I don't see the problem there. I get that regulations make it more difficult for companies to enter a market, but if that means more protection for the user privacy (in this specific case), I cannot see how that co…

I think the point that the GP post is making (which I agree with) is not to complain about the burden of complying with local regs, but to point out that consumers in the EU are going to miss out if small companies don't offer their services there due to regulatory concerns. > I cannot see how that could be a problem. This is a cost/benefit calculation, but not an easy one. In general a given set of regulations will…

> I think the point that the GP post is making [...]

Yup, that was the point.

> And that's their decision

Some at least. It's modern European federalism. The same people that the lawmakers believe aren't able to make their own decisions about which services are good or bad for them are, yet, able to determine that these regulations will be beneficial.

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

#303

Post by mtgx » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 12:22 AM UTC

juanmirocks wrote: post #188

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…

I guess the grass is always greener on the other side. I'm European, and I sure miss my perceived greater freedom and innovation of economical activities in the US. Things like having UBER banned for example in France or Germany completely throws me off. And in Germany you don't know yet what's living without cash and only with a credit card. And those damn cookie notices!! Because they show up in every page, everybo…

Do you want for your bank or government to cut you off from any funds at any time?

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

#304

Post by makecheck » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 12:24 AM UTC

code_duck wrote: post #223

I’ve noticed the data sharing between Instagram and Facebook, and purely as a user, it has been an annoyance so far. I had been cultivating the two as separate networks, to avoid the algorithm’s tunnel vision and interact with a wider circle of people. I never linked my IG and FB accounts together. I use both of them for my business as an artist, and have thousands of people that I’ve never met on both. On instagram,…

A similar thing happened when Google+ tried to link accounts with YouTube, etc.

When will companies figure out that a brand has value by itself and should not be auto-merged with the rest of the universe?

It just makes me want to avoid doing pretty much anything, for fear of the next purchase out of my control just mixing things together.

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

#305

Post by makecheck » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 12:26 AM UTC

redial wrote: post #194

kahlonel wrote: post #182

I wonder what kind of data WhatsApp could be sharing with FB, given the fact that actual conversations are end-to-end encrypted. I imagine it could be something like 1) When do you sleep/wake-up, 2) Enumerating people in your social circle, 3) Guess what you're upto if you use the "Status" feature, and similar things. Now FB knows a LOT more than that about you. If you are an active FB user, it doesn't make sense to…

Contacts. Now Facebook not only knows who you speak to online, but they also have access to the people and businesses you deal with in the 'real world' too.

It’s far worse than that. If you and any two people in your list have done the same, then the app has just been given permission to a whole graph, and on and on. Connections are easy to link up. After awhile, it almost doesn’t matter if you give permission as long as they can infer a long list of possible connections based on everything else they know.

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

#306

Post by bousaid » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 12:36 AM UTC

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…

Wow. What sort of data do they send?

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

#307

Post by randomsearch » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 12:52 AM UTC

juanmirocks wrote: post #188

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…

I guess the grass is always greener on the other side. I'm European, and I sure miss my perceived greater freedom and innovation of economical activities in the US. Things like having UBER banned for example in France or Germany completely throws me off. And in Germany you don't know yet what's living without cash and only with a credit card. And those damn cookie notices!! Because they show up in every page, everybo…

Lost me here, but are you trying to say the US is ahead of the game in terms of card payments? Because the States is clearly miles behind the EU.

Do you guys even have chip and pin everywhere yet? Last time I was over, you didn’t, and we moved onto contactless in the UK years ago.

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

#308

Post by holografix » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 1:45 AM UTC

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.

More and more the US resembles the wild west where only the fittest survive and how fit you are depends heavily on the success of your parents and the financial circumstances you were born into.

I liken it to capitalism 2.0 or a new form of corrupted monarchy where the 1% of royalty will protect their castles by slowly diminishing the power of the population’s representative government.

In China there seems to be at least some anxiety amongst the wealthy that the Comunist party’s eye of Sauron might gaze upon you and your life tossed into the flaming lava as it’s harder for a system without elections to be corrupted by lobbyists.

In the US the big money interests are supremely defiant.

Europe still scarred by the wars seems to understand the need for opportunity and decency on a much deeper level.

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

#309

Post by joshuamorton » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 1:49 AM UTC

mbroncano wrote: post #290

DannyBee wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you'll see FB/others decide the EU isn't worth it over time. It's interesting how many people here believe that there is no other possibility other than "we get what we want to happen". Your faith is, IMHO, misplaced. There are many cases in history where other companies decided it wasn't worth the cost of doing business in certain countries. Or they just successfully coopted the governments!

Yeah, we already saw how that went on China [1]. The reality is, no board will in any circumstance quit doing business in the largest economic area in the world by far [2], at least if they want to keep their job. Thinking otherwise is just naïve, I'm afraid. In fact, my impression is that these policies encourage all involved actors into developing a better business model that can accommodate different sensibilities…

>Yeah, we already saw how that went on China [1].

I don't really see how this is comparable. Google has had a subset of things available in China forever (translate, as a clear example), and interacts with China for certain things (AlphaGo). That doesn't change the fact that none of its "moneymaker" consumer products have operated there for years.

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

#310

Post by pierrebeaucamp » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 1:56 AM UTC

pgeorgi wrote: post #266

juanmirocks wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the grass is always greener on the other side. I'm European, and I sure miss my perceived greater freedom and innovation of economical activities in the US. Things like having UBER banned for example in France or Germany completely throws me off. And in Germany you don't know yet what's living without cash and only with a credit card. And those damn cookie notices!! Because they show up in every page, everybo…

> And in Germany you don't know yet what's living without cash and only with a credit card. That's because we had our own system established in 1984 (ELV, electronic direct debit based on the EC cards mentioned elsewhere). From a German point of view, a credit card is a downgrade. - The system covered all German banks (private banks, public banks = Sparkassen, credit unions) because they got their act together and se…

I don't think that matters at all. Many countries have their own debit card system and for what it's worth, I think EC cards are great debit cards. They can, however, not replace credit cards.

All the benefits from credit cards really come from the fact that you're paying with credit: - Travel a lot? They sure accept Visa. - Want to pay some street vendor? Square is only possible because they don't need to dial your bank directly.

Also the fee per transaction might be cheaper on debit cards, but the cost to acquire a debit card reader from your bank is still high. That's why virtually all larger vendors do accept debit cards in Germany, only smaller businesses are cash only (from my perspective).