Facebook’s tracking of non-users ruled illegal again in Europe • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook’s tracking of non-users ruled illegal again in Europe

#101

Post by cyphar » Mon, Mar 05, 2018, 7:35 AM UTC

jcranmer wrote: post #75

cyphar wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> European companies are just as capable of violating the law as American companies. I never said they aren't capable, I said that they would generally choose not to (not to mention that "hosted in Europe" is actually now becoming a bit of a selling point because of the pro-privacy regulations there). > Part of the argument being made by critics is that there's been little sign that comparable effort has been made by…

> European regulators are very strict with European companies in a variety of ways. Just because it doesn't make international news every week is not proof that it doesn't happen (I work for SUSE remotely and my impression is that the German government is very meticulous about verifying that companies aren't breaking the law.) The obvious counterpoint here is the Volkswagen emissions scandal. Europe generally went "o…

I think that's a fair point, and I completely agree that the emissions scandals were horribly handled by the EU. For the record though, Germany actually did an arguably better job than the EU commision (actually doing investigations into the fraud and raiding several car companies), while the EU appears to have done very little.

But neither have not done as well as Switzerland (banning VW diesel cars entirely), South Korea (criminal case against VW executives), Netherlands (class action and investigating the reacquisition of the subsidies paid to VW previously), Australia (forced recalls and class action lawsuits), or America (as you've already mentioned).

I don't know whether the car industry is the best example of "EU interventionism" done right, given how central the car industry is to Europe's enconomy (which is a whole different issue). I'm not sure whether they would've treated non-EU companies differently.

Re: Facebook’s tracking of non-users ruled illegal again in Europe

#102

Post by polskibus » Mon, Mar 05, 2018, 7:35 AM UTC

I suppose US could tax those non-US users so that using fb would cost them something.... Oh wait...

Re: Facebook’s tracking of non-users ruled illegal again in Europe

#103

Post by askvictor » Mon, Mar 05, 2018, 7:36 AM UTC

mziel wrote: post #16

lbarrow wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by "doesn't end up like the cookie law"? I'm an American and don't have much awareness of this other than I've noticed that sites in the EU like the Guardian tend to have annoying banners saying they use cookies at the bottom of their splash screens.

You can read more about the cookie law here: https://www.cookielaw.org/the-cookie-law/ Basically EU wanted sites to obtain consent to use users' cookies (and for the users to give/take away that consent). However, pretty much all the sites just decided to provide you with a banner saying something like "if you're using this site you agree to our cookie policy". Therefore the law became ineffective and just a nuisance…

But what's the alternative approach to the cookie law? A yes/no consent page before your site, and if you click no, the user doesn't get to access it? Because that's basically the same thing, but even more annoying.

Re: Facebook’s tracking of non-users ruled illegal again in Europe

#104

Post by mgoetzke » Mon, Mar 05, 2018, 7:43 AM UTC

derefr wrote: post #13

fouc wrote: post #2

>“The cookies and pixels we use are industry standard technologies and enable hundreds of thousands of businesses to grow their businesses and reach customers across the EU,” said Facebook’s VP of public policy for EMEA If it is "industry standard", does that make it ethical?

I think the implication is more, "why are you only paying attention to us ? If you think this is a bad practice, then you should be going after our competitors , too." Corporations tend not to mind if you take away a business strategy of theirs, as long as you take it away from everybody else at the same time. If you only take it away from one corporation, that corporation will be temporarily outcompeted by the corpo…

There is a rule in Germany called "Im Unrecht gibt es keine Gleichberechtigung". Meaning when you are breaking the law you cannot point to others also breaking the law as defense.

Re: Facebook’s tracking of non-users ruled illegal again in Europe

#105

Post by haeffin » Mon, Mar 05, 2018, 7:45 AM UTC

askvictor wrote: post #103

mziel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can read more about the cookie law here: https://www.cookielaw.org/the-cookie-law/ Basically EU wanted sites to obtain consent to use users' cookies (and for the users to give/take away that consent). However, pretty much all the sites just decided to provide you with a banner saying something like "if you're using this site you agree to our cookie policy". Therefore the law became ineffective and just a nuisance…

But what's the alternative approach to the cookie law? A yes/no consent page before your site, and if you click no, the user doesn't get to access it? Because that's basically the same thing, but even more annoying.

Which is why there is the "And more importantly you can revoke it (at any point) and the site can't deny or degrade the service (unless the data is strictly necessary for a specific action related to the service)." point - you're not allowed to deny access to a newspaper article if somebody does not consent.

Re: Facebook’s tracking of non-users ruled illegal again in Europe

#106

Post by Kenji » Mon, Mar 05, 2018, 7:45 AM UTC

You all are rejoicing now but you will see that the laws will have unintended consequences and doesn't help much, just like the cookie law.

Re: Facebook’s tracking of non-users ruled illegal again in Europe

#107

Post by whyever » Mon, Mar 05, 2018, 7:46 AM UTC

askvictor wrote: post #103

mziel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can read more about the cookie law here: https://www.cookielaw.org/the-cookie-law/ Basically EU wanted sites to obtain consent to use users' cookies (and for the users to give/take away that consent). However, pretty much all the sites just decided to provide you with a banner saying something like "if you're using this site you agree to our cookie policy". Therefore the law became ineffective and just a nuisance…

But what's the alternative approach to the cookie law? A yes/no consent page before your site, and if you click no, the user doesn't get to access it? Because that's basically the same thing, but even more annoying.

No, you could outlaw degrading functionality, which is what they are doing in the new law.

Re: Facebook’s tracking of non-users ruled illegal again in Europe

#108

Post by pfortuny » Mon, Mar 05, 2018, 7:47 AM UTC

derefr wrote: post #13

fouc wrote: post #2

>“The cookies and pixels we use are industry standard technologies and enable hundreds of thousands of businesses to grow their businesses and reach customers across the EU,” said Facebook’s VP of public policy for EMEA If it is "industry standard", does that make it ethical?

I think the implication is more, "why are you only paying attention to us ? If you think this is a bad practice, then you should be going after our competitors , too." Corporations tend not to mind if you take away a business strategy of theirs, as long as you take it away from everybody else at the same time. If you only take it away from one corporation, that corporation will be temporarily outcompeted by the corpo…

They were the ones being denounced. It is like a drug kingpin being caught and saying “why am I the only one”, we all do the same?

Well, you are just the fisrt one and the biggest one.

Re: Facebook’s tracking of non-users ruled illegal again in Europe

#109

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 05, 2018, 7:47 AM UTC

askvictor wrote: post #103

mziel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can read more about the cookie law here: https://www.cookielaw.org/the-cookie-law/ Basically EU wanted sites to obtain consent to use users' cookies (and for the users to give/take away that consent). However, pretty much all the sites just decided to provide you with a banner saying something like "if you're using this site you agree to our cookie policy". Therefore the law became ineffective and just a nuisance…

But what's the alternative approach to the cookie law? A yes/no consent page before your site, and if you click no, the user doesn't get to access it? Because that's basically the same thing, but even more annoying.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook’s tracking of non-users ruled illegal again in Europe

#110

Post by Tarq0n » Mon, Mar 05, 2018, 7:50 AM UTC

anaganisk wrote: post #68

kerng wrote: post #50

One of the good things about HN is that the engineers working and building these features are likely reading these posts too, I'm curious how one implements these things. Are engineers (some of the brightest ones) not realizing that some of their actions are ethically questionable, or is the big picture not visible to the average engineer in a large company like FB? I assume that many have the exact same reaction and…

Afaik software will be sane untill Lawyers and Finance execs are involved. Once they are into your company no more great software.

Is this a parody of the engineer's mindset?

One thing that always stands out to me on HN is how obsessed Silicon Valley is with money, from top to bottom. There's plenty people on here that would happily implement invasive tracking if they were compensated well enough for it.