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

381–390 of 423 posts

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

#381

Post by dagw »

novaRom wrote: post #230
juanmirocks wrote: post #209

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).

There is also a cost involved with handling cash. I don't know exactly how those costs add up relative to other payment methods, but I do know that certainly here in Sweden more and more shops and restaurants have stopped accepting cash all together, so presumably cost is non-trivial.

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

#382

Post by kchoudhu »

farrisbris wrote: post #380
kchoudhu wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It creates a healthier society in long run if people cannot spend money they don't have Ok, now explain this: https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-debt.htm Denmark, Holland and Norway are nobody's idea of unhealthy societies -- and households there have well over double the debt load of US households.

This debt, at least in Norways case, is probably mostly due to a very large portion of people buying their own home. Its a lot more common here than in other countries and when growing up, at some point buying your own home is almost expected of you. It is also heavily incentivized by the government through tax policy. This is probably creating a housing bubble of sorts, so i guess we'll see how well that turns out a…

I doubt Norwegian homeownership culture is anything as militant or debt-fueled as America's. Remember how the US nearly tanked itself with mortgage backed securities a few years ago?

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

#383

Post by pgeorgi »

harperlee wrote: post #375
pgeorgi wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> From a German point of view, a credit card is a downgrade. Not only germans use the german system. When other Europeans go to European institutions that are placed in Germany, we can't use electronic payments. A system established 34 years ago should not be an acceptable excuse for a subpar service. It is a shame (and quite fraud-risky!) to go on a taxi and have to wait 5-10 minutes for the taxi driver to carbon co…

> A system established 34 years ago should not be an acceptable excuse for a subpar service.

The system was developed in those 34 years, both on user visible features (EMV card with chip&pin in 2004) and invisible (SEPA Cards Clearing, implemented in 2015). The latter allows any SEPA based participant (and those outside, apparently there's some interest in Brazil) to handle clearing of transactions compatibly. That should allow card based SEPA Credit/Debit Transfers (which draws from 34 years old ELV a lot).

Merging incompatible banking systems takes time, but IMHO that's better than just layering another rent seeker or two (the credit card company, plus potentially Stripe) on top.

Offtopic, but:

> whilst in the same country Uber has been banned

Maybe they should have read up on the local regulations instead of spouting their usual nonsense about fighting the taxi cartel? (nevermind that the biggest player in that space is Uber itself)

A cursory reading of the relevant laws got me three different ways to try to establish a legal setup in which they could have proved their contribution to the public transport system for a couple of years (after which that could be extended or be made part of the official playbook). But it sometimes looks like reading laws is a fireable offense at Uber.

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

#384

Post by odiroot »

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'm now in China. We, in Western Europe, are really decades behind them in mobile payments. This is just so much more convenient.

And yes, it's probably a privacy nightmare, I agree. But at least you can make this choice in here.

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

#385

Post by seanmcdirmid »

odiroot wrote: post #384
pgeorgi wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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'm now in China. We, in Western Europe, are really decades behind them in mobile payments. This is just so much more convenient. And yes, it's probably a privacy nightmare, I agree. But at least you can make this choice in here.

How is getting your phone out and fumbling with a QR scanner more convenient than tapping your card against a RF surface?

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

#387

Post by kuschku »

MVorlm wrote: post #322
germanier wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have bad news for you: things like the Uniform Foreign Money Judgments Recognition Act exist which makes it possible to enforce foreign verdicts. Even if no such law applies, most US companies that do business with EU customers have by definition some assets in the EU even if only briefly (or else they couldn't charge them anything). The US doesn't sue foreign pot shops because the sale happens abroad and they have…

That's the point. If I run a US-based company and have 0 assets in X country, it doesn't matter. EU lawyers would also know this and also wouldn't bring it to court. It's just a waste of everyone's time. I'm certainly not going to do anything If I get a summons from a random country due to some random law. Especially if it means nothing in the country I'm currently located in.

It does matter if your bank will comply, and no bank will risk getting banned from the EU market for a small customer like you.

Some day you’ll wake up, and notice all your corporate bank accounts are empty and frozen.

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

#388

Post by Kurtz79 »

cattlefarmer wrote: post #372
Kurtz79 wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would find more ridiculous (or suspicious) someone carrying 2000€ in cash in this day and age for whatever reason, to be honest. It is clearly a measure created to prevent tax evasion, which in Portugal is a real issue (as in most Southern Europe countries, I'm Italian) http://www.theportugalnews.com/news/may-2016-portugal-named-... . Since, as your parent says, in Portugal cashless systems are convenient are effic…

> I would find more ridiculous (or suspicious) someone carrying 2000€ in cash in this day and age for whatever reason, to be honest. You'd think. I bought a house in Japan and I had to pay my deposit in cash, approximately US$10,000. Walking around with that much money, I've never been more paranoid in my life.

Yes, it it seems Japan has a weird relationship with bank accounts and credit/debit cards, as I learned here:

http://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan/

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

#389

Post by abritinthebay »

pitaj wrote: post #252
coliveira wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s... an opinion. One that doesn’t make a ton of sense once you follow it through everywhere, practically speaking, but as an ideological point... sure, I get it.

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

#390

Post by Spearchucker »

kchoudhu wrote: post #379
pgeorgi wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same price point, except that credit cards usually cost extra here. Since bank transfers are immediate now (unlike in the past when monthly batching was cost effective) and most credit cards in Germany are managed by the banks and coupled to bank accounts, they could just reconcile all transactions immediately (and even reject those that overdraw too much). In such a situation, credit would become a risk adjusted pre…

You are missing my point. I don't care if credit reconciles immediately at the bank level or not, I care about what credit cards allow me to do, which is smooth over lumpy cashflow. If I have expenses of 100K a year, without access to credit I have to make 100K a year without fail, or I am insolvent. With credit, I can make 100K one year, 0 the next and 200K (+ whatever interest I need to pay for Year 2) in the final…

If it were insane nobody would do it. It does, however, come with a magnitude of risk that Americans seem more likely to accept than Europeans are.
Post reply on HN