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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

#171

Post by Joe-Z »

peoplewindow wrote: post #100
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…

How is the law reasonable? It's not even clear what is allowed under it and what isn't. The EU refuses to clarify anything, the only time any decision will be made is by courts, if there's an actual dispute in progress. The rules are so vague that any firm could be argued to be in violation. And the EU acts as judge, jury and executioner. It looks like a way to tax the SV tech firms without needing a treaty change. A…

>The rules are so vague that any firm could be argued to be in violation.

I think that's a good thing. So the law has to be interpreted by precedence set by the courts.

If the text of is too specific you could have the opposite effect of companies weaseling through.

It is not a tax. It's pretty clear that the EU expects companies to treat private user data with respect. If your company cannot operate without exploiting this info, than maybe the world is better off without it anyway.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#172

Post by madez »

peoplewindow wrote: post #133
madez wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 concr…

There are regulations for agreements. In Germany for example, when you rent a flat, the customers have inalienable rights that he can't legally-bindingly forfeit even in written contract form.

There is no such thing as a fully free market, and that is a good thing.

The complaint is not that they want to control every detail. Certain parts of the agreements might simply not be valid just by clicking a check box, or the parts are not displayed in a form that is considered appropiate. Imagine a document with 15000 words that is unnegotiable by you. Will your mother read that so she can give meaningful consent? I don't think so, so the consent isn't valid. This line of reasoning is about common sense, and not about formalities, and I'm glad it is relevant in law.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#173

Post by TomMarius »

e1ven wrote: post #138
TomMarius wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 off…

No, I just imply that it's their problem if they don't.

That's a nice quote but you have to click a button that says 'I've read the TOS' and next to the button is a link leading to the TOS.

If you've chosen to not read them, it's entirely your problem.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#174

Post by Tomte »

tobltobs wrote: post #76
TomMarius wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can stop using Facebook if you want to

FB can stop to have a corporate presence in the EU.

I hope there's a mechanism to arrest Facebook officers on business trips or vacation to EU countries and compel them to cough up the money.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#175

Post by TomMarius »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #146
TomMarius wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know you don't have to use Facebook, right? It's not even like it's the only social network. Facebook is not something you need.

That's not a reasonable defense, though. Not to mention, it's been shown quite a bit that FB is still gathering information on people who are not members of Facebook.

How is that not a reasonable defence?

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#176

Post by madez »

TomMarius wrote: post #154
madez wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is of no matter where FB is incorporated. Every country can still bring it to court and judge it. The question is then of enforceability. I'm confident the EU can enforce fines on FB, but that is a different discussion.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#177

Post by AndrewKemendo »

Nition wrote: post #160
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #120

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.

It's scary to some people but not others, so is the purpose of GDPR to spur a discussion on the scope of technology and privacy tradeoffs or to actively slow the pace of personal data collection?

I think there has been a lack of reasonable and measured discussion about this issue, it's very polarized as with most things.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#178

Post by ncallaway »

peoplewindow wrote: post #100
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…

How is the law reasonable? It's not even clear what is allowed under it and what isn't. The EU refuses to clarify anything, the only time any decision will be made is by courts, if there's an actual dispute in progress. The rules are so vague that any firm could be argued to be in violation. And the EU acts as judge, jury and executioner. It looks like a way to tax the SV tech firms without needing a treaty change. A…

> How is the law reasonable? It's not even clear what is allowed under it and what isn't. The EU refuses to clarify anything, the only time any decision will be made is by courts, if there's an actual dispute in progress.

How is that different from a US law like HIPAA? The structures of the law seem largely the same, in that they give you guidelines to follow, but provide no clarity about what specifically is required by it and what isn't.

Understanding HIPAA has largely come from companies doing their best to comply with their understanding, and clarifications tend to come from courts when there's an actual dispute in progress.

Then, the US (through it's various district courts, circuit courts, the supreme court, and regulatory bodies) acts as the "judge, jury, and executioner".

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#179

Post by jdmichal »

jimnotgym wrote: post #164
blibble wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Can you elaborate on which scheme you mean please?

I believe it's a reference to 2015 VAT changes. Here's a PricewaterhouseCoopers article:

http://ebiz.pwc.com/2013/01/eu-2015-vat-changes-to-eservices...

This was quite a hit to small companies, because now they have to manage collecting and remitting taxes to every country their consumer customers reside in. Previously they only had to collect and remit taxes to their own home country.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#180

Post by TomMarius »

mziel wrote: post #162
TomMarius wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true, you can leave the website. The website of course has to not track you until you don't leave.

Again, this is not deemed sufficient by GDPR. According to the law you can't condition the service you're providing on collecting unrelated (to that service) data.

The GDPR doesn't apply to US companies. While the FB has EU offices right now, they're there for convenience only. They can close them next month and stop caring about the EU law.
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