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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

#331

Post by chopin »

tzs wrote: post #282
kaybe wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can probably get a lot less if you try to sell the data to non-EU entities compared to local ones though. Same for advertisement prices.

That raises some interesting questions. Let's say: • I run website W. W does not obey EU privacy and data rules, but I, my company, my server, etc., are all outside the EU in places without treaties that would allow enforcement of EU rules against me. • I sell data from EU citizens who visit W. I sell this data to ad network N that is also outside the EU. (I'm selling N all my visitor data, not just data from EU visi…

N is definitely violating EU laws. It handles data of EU citizens without their consent. The EU could stop the cash flow from C to N. It's rather simple: You can't purchase products which are made illegally. As much as I can't legally buy DDOS services, even if the provider is outside my jurisdiction.

I think that's the gist of the GDPR. Make personal data toxic.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#332

Post by AstralStorm »

Sylos wrote: post #325
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…

GDPR is reasonable. How Facebook handles user data is not. I'm sure, they'll mostly ignore the law at first, and if they get sued, they'll claim having a legitimate interest [1], but that will be their strategy, because actually complying with the law voluntarily would likely cost them more. And yes, especially Germany already had a very similar law in place, but Facebook did not actually need to keep to it most of t…

Ignoring the court order of which they were duly informed and which contains time to comply is a felony. Including a huge fine in this case, which will likely be calculated per German user. Think something closer to 30 M€.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#333

Post by chopin »

tzs wrote: post #219
lurker456 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has software patents. The EU has GDPR. China has rampant IP theft. Russia has corruption. Every large market has peculiarities, it's the cost of doing business.

> The US has software patents. So does the EU [1]. "The European Patent Convention states that software is not patentable. But laws are always interpreted by courts, and in this case interpretations of the law differ. So the European Patents Office (EPO) grants software patents by declaring them as 'computer implemented inventions'". [1] https://fsfe.org/campaigns/swpat/swpat.en.html

Even though, in most of Europe we have a loser pays legal system. That's one of the reasons we don't have rampant patent trolling.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#334

Post by doikor »

peoplewindow wrote: post #233
pjc50 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the enforcement is through the national "supervisory authorities" such as the ICO. Most of the enforcement process is through national courts and the ECJ is only for the final layer of appeal. This very article says "German Court rules ..." > voided the UK's opt out of new human rights related legislation, despite a very clear paragraph in the treaties saying they did not apply to the UK. [citation needed]; did y…

See here: https://fullfact.org/europe/eu-and-human-rights/ In the section "Wasn’t the UK supposed to get an opt-out from EU human rights laws?" The summary is, when the Treaty of Lisbon awarded the EU new human rights powers the UK and Poland negotiated an opt out which was written in the treaty. It was a part of convincing the UK government to accept the new treaty without granting a referendum on it, as they had pr…

> They were promised the EU wouldn't interfere with their tax policies

EU promised not to meddle as long as preferential treatment wasn't given. As in if Ireland gave the exact same tax deal to every company in Ireland then it would have been fine.

(the no preferential treatment in taxation bit is part of getting access to the single market)

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#335

Post by madez »

buster wrote: post #327
cbhl wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - It's OK to have the user agree that he's 13 years or older. Facebook cannot possibly check whether it's true, and the age doesn't matter anyway since the contract would be valid even if it weren't the case. I suspect this clause is actually due to US law (COPPA). Also, are kids allowed to agree to contracts in Germany? I believe that's not the case in the US.

I didn't understand that part as well. As far as I know, kids can't sign contracts. They are not "geschäftsfähig" (business capable) until they are 18. Unless the parents explicitly agree to some contract.

Teenagers can agree to contracts, but only in very limited terms. For example, they can buy food in a supermarket. Buying stuff in a store constitutes a contract.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#336

Post by claudius »

buster wrote: post #327
cbhl wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - It's OK to have the user agree that he's 13 years or older. Facebook cannot possibly check whether it's true, and the age doesn't matter anyway since the contract would be valid even if it weren't the case. I suspect this clause is actually due to US law (COPPA). Also, are kids allowed to agree to contracts in Germany? I believe that's not the case in the US.

I didn't understand that part as well. As far as I know, kids can't sign contracts. They are not "geschäftsfähig" (business capable) until they are 18. Unless the parents explicitly agree to some contract.

Kids under 7 cannot enter into contracts at all. Kids between 7 and 18 can enter into contracts, either if those contracts are entirely without duties to them (e.g. they can accept gifts) or if their contractual duties are somewhat negligible (e.g. they can buy sweets from their pocket money) or their guardians agreed to them being able to enter into such contracts. All other contracts are provisionally void (?!, "schwebend unwirksam"), i.e. can become void as soon as their guardians disagree with the contract or can become fully valid once their guardians agree.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#337

Post by claudius »

blibble wrote: post #237
Xylakant wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A customer is entitled to an invoice and a full invoice requires an address. Most businesses that offer digital goods and services should have had that even before. All the people I know that were affected by the VAT changes certainly had all customer adresses. This is not a cash sale in a local book store.

the paperwork is a minor bureaucratic annoyance, it's not a significant problem the significant problem is now the fact that I have to register for VAT domestically if I want to to sell to people in other EU countries before if my turnover was below ~£70,000 I paid no VAT at all due to the exemption (giving me a competitive edge vs. big companies with better economies of scale) after the new regulations if I make any…

So you’re upset that your tax evasion scheme is now no longer possible and you have to pay taxes?

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#338

Post by [deleted] »

mirimir wrote: post #288
lima wrote: post #246

That article doesn't summarize the ruling very well. Here's a short tl;dr of the actual ruling[0]: Part A: Privacy settings - Facebook tried to claim that it is only subject to Irish law. Court disagrees since Facebook operates in Germany, so local law applies. [side note: this kind of confusion is exactly why the GDPR is needed] - Law states that the imprint must be "easily" accessible. Court found this not to be th…

Great summary! > The court states that it is questionable whether a real name policy is at all legal, underlining the need for proper consent due to the significant consequences of volunteering one's real name. That represents an amazing win for online privacy. And seems totally at odds with core Facebook policy.

[deleted]

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#339

Post by romanovcode »

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.

> withdrawal from these markets.

Good, I would love to see FB be gone from EU altogether.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#340

Post by TheAceOfHearts »

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 real world is very complicated. As time goes on, there will be lots of court cases which set a precedent.

Even though I dislike em, I think the laws surrounding fair use and copyright are another example. Due to its nature, it's incredibly difficult to provide exhaustive guidelines.

As long as these large enterprises engage in a good faith attempt at complying with the law they shouldn't end up receiving huge fines.

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