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German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

reuters.com

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Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#131

Post by TomMarius »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #117
TomMarius wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true. That's the purpose of the cookie law. If you continue to use a website that gives you the notice, you've given consent. You can still use blockers also.

And if someone tags me in a photo?

Then they uploaded a picture they shouldn't have uploaded and the person who uploaded it should be sued (by you and possibly by Facebook because they broke the TOS that says you can only upload stuff that doesn't break the laws - and a photo of you that you didn't agree to be uploaded is against the laws)

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#132

Post by blibble »

waytogo wrote: post #94
lima wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GDPR isn't actually as bad as people claim. The law is actually pretty reasonable. It is the result of years of discussion and deliberation. In fact, privacy watchdogs are complaining that it doesn't go far enough - it leaves plenty of holes. Most of the GDPR is about informed consent, having a valid reason for processing personal data and individual rights. Facebook will do just fine, they had years to prepare a…

> Facebook will do just fine, they had years to prepare and an army of lawyers. They won't do fine. Don't want to go into details but their actual products/required architectures for their products just can't be GDPR compliant. And they didn't prepare anything. You confuse them with Google--they prepared GDPR but FB? Btw, one of GDPR's key motivation was to take FB down.

> Btw, one of GDPR's key motivation was to take FB down.

this all seems very similar to the new VAT scheme, in that it was designed to target a foreign giant (Amazon), which was barely affected as a result, and instead ended up hurting the competitiveness of the EU's own small businesses

the EU Commission's response to small business concerns about that new VAT scheme? "we'll allocate some time to talk about that in 5 years"

fantastic

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#133

Post by peoplewindow »

madez wrote: post #86
peoplewindow wrote: post #5

I think if I was creating a new social media website today I'd probably not set up any presence in the EU. The sheer quantity of fines for vaguely specified "crimes" being handed out makes it a deeply unattractive business environment and it seems to be getting worse. I remember when Facebook was new, one of its big competitive advantages was its easy and comprehensive privacy controls. I didn't see other social netw…

> Now Germany - having failed to clone Facebook domestically (StudiVZ) - sits around extracting money on the grounds that users somehow did not consent to their data being used (...) That is an inappropriate accusation. In Germany, large data collections have been seen as very problematic since before social networks were a thing. Authoritive action and laws take time to adapt to new problems. Given the prevalance of…

Read the article. The violation was:

"Facebook hides default settings that are not privacy-friendly in its privacy center and does not provide sufficient information about it when users register"

How is putting privacy settings in the privacy center hiding them? What is "sufficient" information when users register? Where in law are these things spelled out?

Germany isn't punishing Facebook for anything actually concrete or real. Rather the German courts and regulators seem to think they should design Facebook's UI instead of Facebook. This is not how free markets work and if you were creating a new company, why let some random German regional court waste your time on disputes over the position of widgets in your user interface?

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#134

Post by TomMarius »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #128
TomMarius wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an US company if I remember correctly. Does a hamburger place in the US need to follow EU laws because tourists come to it often? No.

I believe McDonalds locations inside Europe do follow EU laws, so yes.

You seem to not understand the difference in location. Of course companies in the EU follow EU laws.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#135

Post by saas_co_de »

songshu wrote: post #125
waytogo wrote: post #18

Wait until GDPR is in place in May and German and other EU courts will rule FB to death. IDK how FB will ever be compliant with GDPR and survive that huge upcoming fines in the long term or in the worst case the withdrawal from these markets.

The GDPR is beautiful and an example of the best outcomes democracy can produce. The winners are pretty much everyone. It's sad that the US can't implement public policy like this.

It is good that they are protecting their citizens from exploitation by US companies but this is not uncommon that it is easier to regulate a large company that is not your constituent.

The EU has not done so well on regulating diesel autos for instance but the US is knocking that one of the park.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#136

Post by mziel »

TomMarius wrote: post #87
sveme wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are collecting information about me even without my consent, without having registered.

That's not true. That's the purpose of the cookie law. If you continue to use a website that gives you the notice, you've given consent. You can still use blockers also.

It's not "consent" as understood by GPDR and ePrivacy. You had no recourse not to give it, therefore it was not willing and informed.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#137

Post by mziel »

TomMarius wrote: post #96
code_duck wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be great if it were true, but even if you don’t use Facebook, that does not exclude you from their marketing activities. https://boingboing.net/2017/11/08/involuntary-profiling.html

Not true, there's the cookie law - if you continue to use a website that has given you an option to leave, it's consent.

It's not "consent" as understood by GPDR and ePrivacy. You had no recourse not to give it, therefore it was not willing and informed.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#138

Post by e1ven »

TomMarius wrote: post #66
microcolonel wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It sounds like they'll just have to update their terms of service to say that you agree to allow Facebook to use your data in XYZ ways. Of course, that'll be buried in the fine print and no-one will even notice. If you read the first paragraph of the article, you'll notice that that is in fact the thing that the court is talking about: the degree of consent created by their terms of service process is deemed insuff…

So they're basically saying "our citizens are so stupid they can't even read properly while becoming a customer of a company based on the other side of the world, and we fine you for their stupidity". Just LOL. I live in the EU and I feel the socialism coming back. I need to get away soon.

Your argument seems to imply that people thoroughly read the TOS for every website they use.

Even if you do that, most people don’t, regardless of country. “Disclosing” things by putting them in the middle of a document that people don’t read was deemed insufficient.

It reminds me of a cute exchange from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:

Mr Prosser: But, Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months.

Arthur: Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn’t exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them had you? I mean like actually telling anybody or anything.

Mr Prosser: But the plans were on display…

Arthur: On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.

Mr Prosser: That’s the display department.

Arthur: With a torch.

Mr Prosser: The lights had probably gone out.

Arthur: So had the stairs.

Mr Prosser: But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?

Arthur: Yes yes I did. It was on display at the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying beware of the leopard.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#139

Post by TomMarius »

llukas wrote: post #127
TomMarius wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope they do. That will mean a lot of lost tax money for the EU (I'm EU citizen btw).

A lot would be before tax optimization not after ;)

Not true anymore since the VAT laws changed last year

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#140

Post by rhizome »

TomMarius wrote: post #112
mrguyorama wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except when your friends take pictures of you and upload them. Facebook doesn't need you to have a device to affect you every single day

It's not FB who is in the wrong, they have no control over your friends' actions.

Sure, but they have all the control over the result of those actions.
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