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Facebook's data gathering hit by German anti-trust clampdown

reuters.com

21–30 of 56 posts

Re: Facebook's data gathering hit by German anti-trust clampdown

#23
post #8

What about Google? (With their Adsense, analytics, email, search ... setup ...)

I think the main issue is the aggregation between FB and WhatsApp data. FB promised/guaranteed not to do it in order to get the acquisition approved. They have since changed their minds. FB would surely complain if the regulators also changed their minds and declared the acquisition illegal/invalid.

> Facebook will no longer be allowed to force its users to agree to the practically unrestricted collection and assigning of non-Facebook data to their Facebook accounts

Re: Facebook's data gathering hit by German anti-trust clampdown

#26
I wish anti-trust regulators would actually do something. The unchecked power and behavior of corporations is depressing. Take WhatsApp away from Facebook. They broke the one condition there was for the acquisition to be allowed. They have no legal or moral right to continue owning it.

Re: Facebook's data gathering hit by German anti-trust clampdown

#27
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to provide some details? because FB considers YouTube, Twitter, and the likes as that competition but you may know more.

Americans are smarter - they provide this bait-facade of "usefulness", Germans are more direct and down-to-the-business e.g. there are billboards on the streets of German cities with "privacy campaigns" actively agitating against Facebook, country-wide hysteria against social networks (or even internet in general). Someone certainly pays for it - articles, billboards, etc are not a volunteer work.

> there are billboards on the streets of German cities with "privacy campaigns" actively agitating against Facebook

I don't recall ever seeing anything like that. So it's either very rare or limited to certain regions. I do recall seeing Facebook billboards which pick up some of the Anti-Facebook rhetoric, e.g. [1]. Those are paid for by Facebook.

> country-wide hysteria against social networks

According to Facebook itself, there are ~29 million daily users[2] in Germany (pop. 82 million).

[1] http://cdn4.spiegel.de/images/image-1065027-galleryV9-qxvz-1... ("I posted something I should not have shared/Delete it and it's gone")

[2] https://allfacebook.de/zahlen_fakten/offiziell-facebook-nutz...

Re: Facebook's data gathering hit by German anti-trust clampdown

#28

Facebook's statement is... interesting. > The Bundeskartellamt underestimates the fierce competition we face in Germany Which competition? The only viable social network in Germany that came close to Facebook was Lokalisten, which shuttered finally in 2016.

Domestic data hoarders and advertisers - extremely invasive and territorial. The difference is that none of them runs social networking website or mobile messenger app, thus without consumer facing facade many uninformed assume they don't exist. e.g. their media and retail oligopolies like to roll out their own ad, tracking, and loyalty programs to have full control of the data. They don't let anyone in and are tryin…

It seems by "competition", they don't mean a competing social network, they mean competition for advertising pesos.

Re: Facebook's data gathering hit by German anti-trust clampdown

#29
post #8

What about Google? (With their Adsense, analytics, email, search ... setup ...)

I hope Google will also be one day forced to use permissions on per app and per service base.

If I want to give Google Maps access to my location it means only Maps and for limited scope not all across Google ecosystem.

Android is constantly nagging me to turn on location and wifi scanning for example to use Google Home. It doesn't make sense - they could use SSID of my home wifi to make sure that I am home. Where my home is is not their business.

Re: Facebook's data gathering hit by German anti-trust clampdown

#30
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Domestic data hoarders and advertisers - extremely invasive and territorial. The difference is that none of them runs social networking website or mobile messenger app, thus without consumer facing facade many uninformed assume they don't exist. e.g. their media and retail oligopolies like to roll out their own ad, tracking, and loyalty programs to have full control of the data. They don't let anyone in and are tryin…

It seems by "competition", they don't mean a competing social network, they mean competition for advertising pesos.

Think of FB as an oil company, whose product is human attention, instead of oil. The social network is the oil extraction technology, that is used to mine people’s data and attention. However, the actual product is this data and attention, which is then sold to advertisers, who are the real customers.

The social media extraction technology could be replaced by other tefhnologies used to mine data and attention, such as videos, music, or chat services. The competitors, however, are other companies selling the same product.

That is FB’s perspective.

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