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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

#251

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

peoplewindow wrote: post #193
Xylakant wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“And the EU acts as judge, jury and executioner.” That’s true only if you regard he EU as a single entity. Laws made via the EU will be turned into national law, and independent judges will judge all cases, up to the EU high court. By the same right you could call the US judge, jury and executioner on all laws and rules made and enforced by the US government (FACTA anyone?)

No. That's not how the EU works. That's how a national government would work but not the EU. The GDPR is not a directive so it does not have to be translated into national law. It is directly binding and applies immediately everywhere. Fines have to be paid up front, before appeals are exhausted. Appeals can of course take years. The EU courts have judges appointed by the same people who control the rest of the EU, a…

I think that this source suggests that this idea may have been a mis-representation by Michael Gove [0] during the course of a referendum (I was interested, as I wasn't aware of any such decision).

Then again, all's fair in love, war and referendums :)

[0] https://infacts.org/mythbusts/ecj-isnt-using-charter-fundame...

To be fair, the Google front page was split between two sides, which suggests that this may be an issue with some emotional salience.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#252

Post by manmal »

peoplewindow wrote: post #114
manmal wrote: 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.

The GDPR does not allow international players to store data on EU citizens without conforming to the rules. So if FB leaves in order to avoid conformance, then they have to delete all EU citizen data.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#253

Post by lima »

jbigelow76 wrote: post #243
redbergy wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they're doing just fine now... I don't get the point?

If somebody says "X has money and an army of lawyers" the implication is they are going to beat the case, Microsoft didn't, they were slapped with the largest fine ever at the time ($794 million USD). They are fine despite the inability of lawyers and prep time to deliver victory, not because of it. No guarantees FB will fare better (or worse).

Parent claims that Facebook will not "ever be compliant" and "in the worst case the withdraw from these markets".

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#254

Post by manmal »

x0x0 wrote: post #220
manmal wrote: 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.

Why do you think social networks have cross country network effects? Xing and VK seem to be doing just fine.

They are doing ok AFAIK, but are almost two orders of magnitude smaller than FB, user wise. I don‘t think Xing is even doing that well, they have started very aggressive monetization tactics recently, like forcing people to purchase a pro account in order to view incoming friend requests.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#255

Post by loup-vaillant »

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…

> And the EU acts as judge, jury and executioner.

Now, now, you make it sound like a single human actually endorses those three roles. Any state (or group of states) is judge, jury, and executioner. I also write and dictates laws…

And that's okay.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#256

Post by franciscop »

freeone3000 wrote: post #232
tschwimmer wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a strong position on the broader issue, but I feel like this argument ignores some context. It's one thing to sign up for your local car wash's loyal program and have them do some lightweight customer research on the data. It's quite another for to input your demographic info and interests into a social networking site and have it be analyzed by some of the most sophisticated data analytics in history. T…

So your problem with data mining is that they're too good at it? What happens when AI gets commoditized, and your car wash gets those analytics as part of their Azure subscription? Are they suddenly no longer allowed to use the data you gave them previously? This isn't consistent, and the line is nowhere near clear.

Of course they are only allowed to use the data for the purpose you gave it to them. How does that not make sense?

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#257

Post by wtfstatists »

Tomte wrote: post #174
tobltobs wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I see so now are literally extorting.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#258

Post by therealmarv »

blibble wrote: post #191
jimnotgym wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on which scheme you mean please?

https://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2014/nov/... and https://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2015/sep/... my solution was to stop selling into the EU, though amusingly once the UK leaves the EU I'll be able to start again (by just ignoring the EU's VAT rules)

There is no legal way around ignoring EU VAT rules and selling to EU customers (no matter where you or your company is located). If you do business with EU end customers you have to comply to EU VAT rules. Just telling you how it works in theory.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#259

Post by wirrbel »

lima wrote: post #253
jbigelow76 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If somebody says "X has money and an army of lawyers" the implication is they are going to beat the case, Microsoft didn't, they were slapped with the largest fine ever at the time ($794 million USD). They are fine despite the inability of lawyers and prep time to deliver victory, not because of it. No guarantees FB will fare better (or worse).

Parent claims that Facebook will not "ever be compliant" and "in the worst case the withdraw from these markets".

the whole EU? Too big to withdraw from.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#260

Post by geofft »

peoplewindow wrote: post #223
ncallaway wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 require…

HIPAA and other mega-regulations like them have the same problems. And they do cause people to just give up rather than deal with the risk. I've listened in on various conversations around health products over the years. HIPAA is a common reason given for not getting into the healthcare space and focusing elsewhere. A lot of smart people and smart products that could have been focused on health just never turn up at…

> HIPAA is a common reason given for not getting into the healthcare space and focusing elsewhere. A lot of smart people and smart products that could have been focused on health just never turn up at all, because of the vagueness, poor drafting and expansive reach of such things.

Good? This sounds like the law is doing what it's supposed to be doing - it's not enough to simply be smart, you have to also be sufficiently willing to pay attention to detail such that you don't accidentally design your systems in a way that leaks personal data. If you find this burdensome, maybe the world is better off if someone else develops it instead. (There are enough newly launched healthcare startups - Clover Health, Oscar, and One Medical all come to mind without even thinking - that I don't think that it's completely stifling innovation, which would be a different story.)

As a person who is much better at being smart than at being reliable and careful, I am totally okay being regulated out of this space - I don't trust myself not to just forget about something. I worry consciously about edge cases in my code because I know I won't worry about them subconsciously. If I want to go into this space, I imagine that I can just hire someone who's good at the regulatory part and willing to focus on getting that stuff right.

I don't understand this idea that smart people should be entitled to develop and market products in whatever way they want, simply because they're smart. I'm sure the Therac-25 programmers were very smart.

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