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Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws

bbc.com

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Re: Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws

#321

Post by oaiey »

Aunche wrote: post #290
ericst wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see what is naive. The EU has never said that you can't have ads. You can do ads without using and selling user data. For instance, you can have contextual ads (depending on what you read, not who you are) or just random ads. GDPR is not against the ad business, it is only setting limits and obligations on how you can use personal data. It is saying that it is not normal for businesses to build huge user prof…

> GDPR is not against the ad business Yet somehow, I doubt that GDPR would exist if Google and Facebook were German companies, rather than American ones.

They would never be German companies. We (Germans) would have regulated them bancrupt long time ago :).

You are right. GDPR is a very German thing. We essentially have a two digit party (the greens) which rose because of the rejection of a general census (and nuclear energy). In Europe we are also not alone with that (see pirate party).

Oh and regards sensibility: The EU tried that. Google and friends gave a shit. Then result was creating a regulation more painful to them. These companies apply their US based understanding of right and wrong to the globe. You see China, EU and Russia are reacting and applying their local rules. With different methods, but they do.

Re: Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws

#322

Post by sanxiyn »

ipsum2 wrote: post #258
bad_user wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawyers can say such things and I'm sure that Facebook will try to fight it, but I don't think they'll be able to do so successfully, because the GDPR is very specific about what a "legitimate interest" is. See here for an explanation: https://www.gdpreu.org/the-regulation/key-concepts/legitimat... PS: the EU can't wait to give fat fines to companies like Facebook and Google, due to their tax evasion schemes. It's th…

> EU can't wait to give fat fines to companies like Facebook and Google, due to their tax evasion schemes. How does GDPR relate to "tax evasion" at all? Also, Google and FB set up to pay taxes in Ireland, which is a member of the E.U. That seems legal to me. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

Yes, it's tax avoidance, not tax evasion. On the other hand, EU seems to want to make the current arrangement tax evasion in the future.

Re: Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws

#323

Post by DuskStar »

the_watcher wrote: post #291
adventured wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 4% of worldwide revenue aspect is almost exclusively pointed at the giant US tech companies. Europe has few meaningfully large tech companies, with large global sales, such that taxing worldwide revenue matters (this is why they didn't just make it an EU revenue tax). It's meant to try to plunder some of the global revenue that Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Netflix, Apple, Amazon, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. are gener…

There's no 4% tax on revenue in the GDPR as far as I can tell. It's a 4% fine for violations. Which is potentially far greater than a 4% tax, since it applies to every violation.

If fines are impossible to avoid without going out of business or leaving the market, they're taxes by another name.

Re: Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws

#324

Post by gkya »

telchar wrote: post #313
gkya wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As an American, reading the term rights associated with increased government control is nonsensical. This is nonsensical. You can not have rights w/o government anyways. You may have privileges or power to force others to comply, but "rights" are defined by a third party entity that enforce them.

You have those backward. Natural rights, at least, are considered to exist before and outside of government. Enumerated rights may derive from government, as do privileges. The "lege" in privilege literally means "law". Enumerated rights are the rights the GP was talking about. These are defined in law, though may derive from natural rights.

Yeah, good luck enforcing that natural rights w/o any entity to protect you from those who are stronger than you and keen on violating your "rights" for their own good. If I have a gun and you don't, and nobody can enforce your right to life, the chances are that I can kill you and your right to life with a single movement of a finger any time I want. And because not everybody can become warlords, w/o any organisation to enforce those natural rights, they'll only belong to those with more guns. And such organisation, in one form or another, is some sort of government. Calling some rights "natural rights" and believing that they "exist before and outside of government" are just naivety in the least, if you don't have nobody to make sure nobody violates them. We don't live in philosophical wonderlands, unfortunately. In our lands some A. Nix guy can easily acquire data of 50million people in a country and put that to use of unlawful, evil organisations. And just like everybody will kill everybody if you don't have jails to put killers in, these companies will continue on forming and exploiting until there are grave consequences to doing so.

Re: Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws

#325

Post by haldean »

lloydsparkes wrote: post #38

I am reading through the complaints, The first one: https://noyb.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/complaint-android... The User sets up a "new" (non Google) phone, and isn't given an option to decline consent to Googles ToS. Now how does this work with a physical product? It needs to be compliant on the 25th of May 2018, but the version of Android may be old and not updated (given its Android). Even if there was an upda…

Android has the ability to push updates to phones that haven't been set up yet; when you first turn on a new phone the first thing it does is ask for wifi so it can check for updates. Google has the ability to update the phone before literally any other part of setup occurs. You do not need to consent to the ToS first; the setup steps on Android are really carefully thought through from a legal perspective.

(I know this because I worked both on the setup system and on one of these "zero-day updates", where we fixed some bugs between when we sent the "final" image to the manufacturer and when we actually shipped devices)

Re: Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws

#326

Post by oaiey »

Aunche wrote: post #316
bad_user wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that relevant in any way? And Germans are more privacy aware than Americans, for obvious historical reasons.

There's nothing inherently wrong with storing user data or using targeted advertising as long as it's not abused. Instead of outlawing only cases of abuse like any sensible law would do, the EU just chooses to throw the baby out with the bathwater because it's not their baby.

The EU tried that. Google and friends gave a shit. Then result was creating a regulation more painful to them. These companies apply their US based understanding of right and wrong to the globe. You see China, EU and Russia are reacting and applying their local rules. With different methods, but they do.

Re: Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws

#327

Post by 908087 »

hshehehjdjdjd wrote: post #260
908087 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You could probably take it a step further and say that it is in the user’s best interest to see targeted rather than generic advertising, because you can show fewer ads and make the same revenue. I don’t know if regulators will buy it though. It would be hard to argue that when none of these companies are in fact showing "fewer ads" as a result of targeting.

You don’t know that, because you don’t know how many ads they would be showing in the alternate reality where they only show non-targeted advertisements.

So regulators should just take their word for it and allow them to slide on compliance because they claim they would be showing more ads in some alternate reality if it weren't for targeting? That sounds like a loophole that would allow pretty much everyone to ignore GDPR completely, and I think you'd actually have to live in an alternate reality to consider that reasonable. The entire advertising industry would be exempt from GDPR.

By that logic, they could fill an entire site with ads, and claim that since those ads are targeted it's still a benefit to users, because if the ads weren't targeted they would have to make the site larger in order to fill it with even more ads. There's no limit to how far you could take that.

Re: Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws

#328

Post by oaiey »

DuskStar wrote: post #323
the_watcher wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no 4% tax on revenue in the GDPR as far as I can tell. It's a 4% fine for violations. Which is potentially far greater than a 4% tax, since it applies to every violation.

If fines are impossible to avoid without going out of business or leaving the market, they're taxes by another name.

They are impossible to avoid if and only if they continue to give a shit about user's rights.

I agree however that the law targets the big tech companies. They ignored previous laws and regulations so they got a meaner more targeted one.

Btw, constitutions start with "we the people" not with "we the companies".

Re: Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws

#329

Post by lukeschlather »

y4mi wrote: post #234
dangerface wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"you would need to agree to the ToS to get that update" If you have to agree to their ToS before you can use the device, it should be before you purchase. Google intentionally waited until they had your cash to say GOTCHA! We require an additional payment of your soul. Now its biting them in the ass, it is entirely fair.

That is entirely false. If you buy from the Google store, you'd have to agree before buying (you can't buy without an account). If you don't, then the seller had to notify you before your purchase. Google had little influence there. And your argument doesn't work if you're taking about third party devices, which the parent was. Android itself is open source. OEMs aren't forced to bundle the Google services with it. T…

Google has a checklist of things that each OEM has to do in order to distribute the Google Apps, which are not open source. If the OEMs are in compliance with Google's terms for OEM distributors, I would say that it is an issue with Google's terms.

I am curious, I have a Samsung device and I note that I can't uninstall Gmail. Is that Google's choice or Samsung's choice?

Re: Google and Facebook accused of breaking GDPR laws

#330

Post by drusepth »

OldSchoolJohnny wrote: post #269
lloydsparkes wrote: post #38

I am reading through the complaints, The first one: https://noyb.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/complaint-android... The User sets up a "new" (non Google) phone, and isn't given an option to decline consent to Googles ToS. Now how does this work with a physical product? It needs to be compliant on the 25th of May 2018, but the version of Android may be old and not updated (given its Android). Even if there was an upda…

Google and the manufacturer had 2 years to ensure this wouldn't be an issue.

Apparently that didn't work. I think we're all curious what they can/will do now, because it is an issue.
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