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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

#341

Post by MaxBarraclough »

Analemma_ wrote: post #263
songshu wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We'll have to wait a while before we know for sure, but one loser might be technology startups, especially European ones. As much talk as there has been about the effects of GDPR on huge companies, the fact is, they're not too concerned: they have enough lawyers to throw at the legal issues and enough engineers to throw at the technical issues. Smaller companies without these resources are going to see their lives ge…

We already know that at least some small US companies can't justify the cost of compliance, even if it means cutting out the EU.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16114530

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#342

Post by blibble »

claudius wrote: post #337
blibble wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

VAT has an explicit zero rate band in the same way income taxes do

having less turnover or income than the value at which you move above the zero rate band is not evasion

low income people aren't evading taxes by not earning enough to be liable to pay them

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#343

Post by stordoff »

dahauns wrote: post #297
peoplewindow wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>consider the case where they simply voided the UK's opt out of new human rights related legislation Erm...you are aware that this case has nothing to do with the ECJ, but with the ECHR, which isn't even an institution of the EU, but of the Council of Europe* , which is an entity completely separate from (and older than) the EU. * not to be confused with the European Council or the Council of the European Union. Yeah…

The decision OP refers to is a ECJ decision on the Charter of Fundamental Rights (NS v Home Secretary), not an ECtHR decision.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#344

Post by pluma »

freeone3000 wrote: post #227
snoman wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I could be given a bit of latitude to generalize for a second, I've noticed that America has a very "self-focused" culture wherein the individual is often seen as being solely responsible for everything relating to their self. That makes a lot of sense but I've seen this often taken to extremes such that the perspective is used to absolve various levels of government, corporations, and organizations from responsib…

That simply reflects technical reality. Once you give them information, you no longer can restrict what they can do with it technically. legally, sure, you can write whatever law you like, but the best way to protect your privacy continues to be technical measures.

The difference is that under German law merely having access to the data doesn't mean you can use that data. This isn't really a novel concept to anyone that's ever heard of an NDA.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#345

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#346

Post by tscs37 »

cbhl wrote: post #310
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…

> - 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.

Under 18 you are not able to form fully valid contracts in Germany. Period.

If you're under 13 any contract that exceeds reasonable monthly allowance is automatically invalid.

All other contracts or "floating/pending valid", ie valid until the parents agree. There is also a clause on 16 to 18 year old kids but IIRC it just shifts responsibility away from the parents more. A contract that is "floating/pending valid" is usually not a problem, it just means the parents can terminate the contract as if it never existed within reasonable bounds (if you bought something from the supermarket and ate it, your parents won't be able to get the money back)

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#347

Post by pluma »

Trundle wrote: post #71
lima wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deeply unattractive business environment for companies exploiting people's personal data without their consent? Good.

Mfw Giving them the data yourself isn't consent.

Mfw you act surprised because your airline is selling pictures of your dirty laundry because you clearly consented by giving them your luggage.

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#348

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

blibble wrote: post #261
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.

just replying again as I remembered another point previously when I had a new idea that I might be able to turn into a business I could form a limited liability company for about £10, try the idea out with essentially no paperwork at all then if the idea panned out I could worry about the huge-pain-in-the-ass-that-is-VAT later now with this regulation it's a problem once I've made my first sale to a non-domestic EU c…

> EU countries have gone from being fantastic places to start a digital services micro-company to being at best mediocre ones, all to try to stop Amazon avoiding VAT

Well, so how do we deal with Amazon avoiding VAT and still being fair to all players on the market, big and small?

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#349

Post by detaro »

rock_hard wrote: post #300
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…

It’s interesting...implementing these changes won’t hurt Facebook...but they will kill any competition from other (smaller) players. This ruling will in the end contribute to Facebooks long term success and will cement its market position.

Which of these changes would be difficult for a smaller competitor?

Re: German court rules Facebook use of personal data illegal

#350

Post by krick »

jacquesm wrote: post #82
chrisper wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see. For a second it seemed you were defending Facebook!

> For a second it seemed you were defending Facebook! I would not rule it out on principle but it is highly unlikely. If FB were to be shut down tomorrow I would probably not even notice.

> If FB were to be shut down tomorrow I would probably not even notice.

Based just on the fact that you are on HN, this is, uhm... highly unlikely.

By the way, I wonder how it would actually look like. I mean, if FB was actually blocked in Germany or something like that, I imagine people (the victims of FB crimes) would very much vocally defend FB, claiming they don't give a fuck about their privacy. Which I cannot decide if it's funny or not.

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