24 year old student lights match: Europe versus Facebook • Hacker News Board

Re: 24 year old student lights match: Europe versus Facebook

#161

Post by div » Wed, Oct 19, 2011, 9:33 AM UTC

count wrote: post #152

zeteo wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the same thing, I believe. When an OS deletes a file, it's actually deleted as far as the OS is concerned (thus they do make a best effort). When FB "deletes" something, they only make it unavailable to you , but they retain the option of using it themselves.

That's a good point, actually. Do we know for a fact if FB keeps the data available for use in their own algorithms/processes, even if they don't allow it's display?

What matters is that they have the option of using it. They may not do so today, but tomorrow is a brand new day.

Re: 24 year old student lights match: Europe versus Facebook

#162

Post by bergie » Wed, Oct 19, 2011, 9:36 AM UTC

tonfa wrote: post #49

count wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you, as a customer of those websites, agree to them knowing you are there, and they chose to share that with others, what right does the government have to prevent that? Why is this not a 'just don't use the service if you don't like it' deal? Credit bureaus are significantly different - you have literally no choice in that manner; Facebook isn't providing data to be used in that type of decision though. If so…

> Is that illegal in Europe as well? Yes. Usually, you cannot build a database (digital or paper) about people without their permission, and without allowing people to get access to their records, and allowing them to get their records deleted. Then there are exceptions (e.g. you have implicit permission to build a database of the members of an association, or you have a contract with the person and what you record i…

> Yes. Usually, you cannot build a database (digital or paper) about people without their permission, and without allowing people to get access to their records, and allowing them to get their records deleted.

In Finland you also have to have a public "registry declaration" available that tells what data you gather and what you do with it. Though quite a lot of websites violate that law due to laziness.

Re: 24 year old student lights match: Europe versus Facebook

#163

Post by Derbasti » Wed, Oct 19, 2011, 9:40 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #158

Derbasti wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might be a great way to brush up you CV after university (for law students).

I am a law student, as it happens. How do you mean?

As far as I can see, there is not much risk involved in asking Facebook/Google/Dropbox/Yahoo/Microsoft/Whatever to give you "your" data, as per European law. Then look at it and see what is wrong with it. Then file a complaint.

What can they do? It's the law.

Then make the thing public, disclose all your communication with your target, post the story to Hacker News and Reddit, maybe even get picked up by some important blogger or newspaper. Would look good on your resume to fight Google, wouldn't it?

Re: 24 year old student lights match: Europe versus Facebook

#164

Post by jackgavigan » Wed, Oct 19, 2011, 9:42 AM UTC

sixtofour wrote: post #118

count wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you, as a customer of those websites, agree to them knowing you are there, and they chose to share that with others, what right does the government have to prevent that? Why is this not a 'just don't use the service if you don't like it' deal? Credit bureaus are significantly different - you have literally no choice in that manner; Facebook isn't providing data to be used in that type of decision though. If so…

"Why is this not a 'just don't use the service if you don't like it' deal?" Because that's the law in Europe (according to the complainer). It doesn't matter that you're free to not use the service, the law says that if you do use it you have certain rights. You're free to not use any service anywhere in the world. But if you do use a service in some jurisdiction, that service is subject to the law in that jurisdicti…

> It doesn't matter that you're free to not use the service, the law says that if you do use it you have certain rights.

Actually, the law says that you have certain rights whether you use the service or not.

Re: 24 year old student lights match: Europe versus Facebook

#165

Post by kiiski » Wed, Oct 19, 2011, 9:46 AM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #140

0x12 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And besides that, it is not the manufacturer of the filesystem that is in control, but the person that installed it, likely the same person that is deleting the files. For web based services the rules change dramatically, because you are no longer in control of the data. Because the past has shown that companies seem to have a hard time to play nice with the data they store on behalf of their unsuspecting users there…

Above and beyond that, any non-trivial web architecture is going to involve multiple tiers of data and caching. A given text object will exist in the primary database, in its replicas or clusters, and in backups. If the outfit is at all legitimate, multiple backups representing frequent points in time, stored in multiple locations. A binary object (say an image, video, or audio file) may exist in its originally uploa…

But if you delete something from the primary database, then I would assume it will eventually get deleted from others too. While it might never be intentionally deleted from backups, the backups will be overwritten with newer ones eventually.

(I'm talking about facebook here, not about the web in general)

Re: 24 year old student lights match: Europe versus Facebook

#166

Post by orionlogic » Wed, Oct 19, 2011, 9:47 AM UTC

count wrote: post #14

Maybe it's my unenlightened American perspective coming out here, but why is this a big deal? You chose to use the Facebook service, you chose to provide this information to them, and you chose to agree to their terms of service. Facebook isn't a government agency, it's a private organization that has persuaded people to give it armloads of data about themselves, and uses that for whatever completely legal purposes i…

Here is your education: http://f.cl.ly/items/1m2v3a392M3R0x3V3c2k/Too%20Much%20Infor...

Re: 24 year old student lights match: Europe versus Facebook

#167

Post by pyre » Wed, Oct 19, 2011, 9:48 AM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #140

0x12 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And besides that, it is not the manufacturer of the filesystem that is in control, but the person that installed it, likely the same person that is deleting the files. For web based services the rules change dramatically, because you are no longer in control of the data. Because the past has shown that companies seem to have a hard time to play nice with the data they store on behalf of their unsuspecting users there…

Above and beyond that, any non-trivial web architecture is going to involve multiple tiers of data and caching. A given text object will exist in the primary database, in its replicas or clusters, and in backups. If the outfit is at all legitimate, multiple backups representing frequent points in time, stored in multiple locations. A binary object (say an image, video, or audio file) may exist in its originally uploa…

  > Dealing with all of this is fairly non-trivial.

To Facebook's benefit, of course. I'm sure that Facebook would never think of using any user data flagged as 'deleted' in any sort of data mining...

Facebook also has no incentive to spend the time to figure how to do deletions because the data is valuable to them. Why would they spent time and effort to make it possible to lose this valuable data?

Re: 24 year old student lights match: Europe versus Facebook

#168

Post by tcarnell » Wed, Oct 19, 2011, 9:56 AM UTC

count wrote: post #14

Maybe it's my unenlightened American perspective coming out here, but why is this a big deal? You chose to use the Facebook service, you chose to provide this information to them, and you chose to agree to their terms of service. Facebook isn't a government agency, it's a private organization that has persuaded people to give it armloads of data about themselves, and uses that for whatever completely legal purposes i…

Yes, I pretty much agree with this. I am sure many IT companies could technically be in trouble with the Data Protection Act in the UK alone for very similar breaches as Facebook and I am sure many companies would not even be able to provide a CD containing a nice break down of all data about a user (even though they are legally obliged to do so).

However, I find it interesting why people get paranoid about the mindless jibber-jabber on facebook compared to the immense and more presice data google stores about individuals... and I imagine getting a CD out of google would be far harder than from facebook (by the looks of things).

Google are clever by being 'open' and allowing people to download 'some' of the data they hold about peoeple, but I am sure they would be as reluctant as facebook to make everything accesible.

Re: 24 year old student lights match: Europe versus Facebook

#169

Post by VMG » Wed, Oct 19, 2011, 10:00 AM UTC

Confusion wrote: post #139

count wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you, as a customer of those websites, agree to them knowing you are there, and they chose to share that with others, what right does the government have to prevent that? Why is this not a 'just don't use the service if you don't like it' deal? Credit bureaus are significantly different - you have literally no choice in that manner; Facebook isn't providing data to be used in that type of decision though. If so…

Why is this not a 'just don't use the service if you don't like it' deal? Because people are ignorant/lazy/desperate and need to be protected against themselves. That's one of the things we want our governments to do: to protect us when we overlook something in the complex reality of our daily lives, without caring for why we overlooked it. You can't sell yourself into slavery, you can't sell an organ and you can't s…

That's one of the things we want our governments to do: to protect us when we overlook something in the complex reality of our daily lives, without caring for why we overlooked it.

Maybe you want, I don't.

Facebook's complexity pales in comparison to the complexities of the government.

Re: 24 year old student lights match: Europe versus Facebook

#170

Post by loup-vaillant » Wed, Oct 19, 2011, 10:00 AM UTC

ordinary wrote: post #144

alexhawket wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that the modern reference to octopus or the legendary reference to the mythic kraken sea creature?

The German word for octopus is indeed "Kraken", and looking at the pictures in the article linked by the GP, I'd bet on the former, rather than the latter.

There's a cultural connotation to the octopus: its tentacles reach everywhere. So, a likely translation for "Datenkrake" would be something like "data umbrella". We could also try "Big Data", in reference to "Big Pharma".