Live data from Hacker News

German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

reuters.com

151–160 of 404 posts

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno man, did you give them your personal data? If yes, then according to the TOS it's theirs. If not, there's no problem.

And why is that a good or acceptable thing? Why should one's personal data, and how that's used, be paramount?

Because nobody forces you to use websites that track you or Facebook itself. It's your voluntary choice and in many cases also your payment for the seemingly free service.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, Facebook could just not do that stuff. Part of the problem is that FB still compiles and uses data on people even if they're not FB users. FB assuredly has plenty of data on you, and uses that as they see fit, regardless of if you've agreed to their terms or not. I would hardly consider that to be 'zero effects'.

Why wouldn't they? It's their business and you have the option of not doing business with them.

But I just explained how people don't necessarily have that choice, given that they still collect data on people who are not members of Facebook.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will only hit Ireland. Thanks to some trickery they only pay 0.03% taxes on their revenue in other EU countries. Wont be a big loss.

Not true anymore (changed last year after the new VAT laws)

The Irish double doesn't have anything to do with VAT. And the Irish double was replaced with the "Single Malt". It would be a loss for Ireland and Malta, still not a big loss.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#154
post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno man, did you give them your personal data? If yes, then according to the TOS it's theirs. If not, there's no problem.

According to the law, you have to give certain rights to the user, including the right to demand cease of use and deletion of the data. So, you do not own the data and are not free to use it however you wish.

That's an EU law, FB is US company.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#155

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…

1) According to this[0] it is the worlds second largest economy

2) It is a very politically stable block, with low crime and corruption, war etc.

3) 51% of the population speak English as a first or second language[1]

4) High levels of literacy

5) Free market

Sounds like a really excellent place to sell advertising, as long as you don't mind not exploiting consumers. Why would you avoid it? In favour of where?

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_European_Unio...

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why is that a good or acceptable thing? Why should one's personal data, and how that's used, be paramount?

Because nobody forces you to use websites that track you or Facebook itself. It's your voluntary choice and in many cases also your payment for the seemingly free service.

This is a very poor argument, as basically it's saying that people should go back to living in caves.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It very much is FB in the wrong if they are using that data for anything.

Nope. Somebody breaks a contract and doesn't pay you and it's your fault? What?

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#158
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Leaving the EU would have very strong network effects and is IMO not an option for Facebook. The entry barrier to social networks is so low now that this could trigger a mass exodus in the rest of the world.

Leaving doesn't mean erasing all the profiles. It just means shutting down local corporate presences. It'd suck for the employees but Facebook can run things out of Palo Alto just fine. I'm not sure what it'd involve for contracts and payments. But many EU firms have US legal presences too. They could easily buy ads on Facebook through their US presence. Multi-nationalism works both ways.

Let them buy ads targeted to their EU customers through their US presence, fine the EU firm for circumventing the rules. Hard? Yes. Impossible? No.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#160

I'd argue there is no way to properly communicate to the average facebook user how their data is being collected and used in a way that is transparent but not confusing. For example, explain to someone who is illiterate in technology how the act of you "tagging" your friend in a photo is to offload image labeling work to train a deep neural network to infer your friend's face. If you radically simplify the issue in l…

> "Whenever you tag a friend in a photo you to help teach our computers to recognize what your friends face looks like"

That's a good simple explanation IMO. If it sounds scary, maybe it is.

Post reply on HN