Even if thousands of businesses across Europe depend on tracking users, I do not think it's enough of a reason not to fight against it, and i would be very happy if those businesses go belly up tomorrow if tracking is outlawed. A business so dependent on completely immoral, outright evil intrusive surveillance does not deserve to be kept alive by exploitation of our rights.
Facebook’s tracking of non-users ruled illegal again in Europe
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Re: Facebook’s tracking of non-users ruled illegal again in Europe
#112>“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…
This is the reason regulation and fair competition should exist.
Re: Facebook’s tracking of non-users ruled illegal again in Europe
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Funny. If your site drops dramatically on Google's search results, or if YouTube/Facebook bans your account for reasons, tough luck. They are a corporation and can do whatever they want without resorting to any sort of internal consistency. But heaven forbid governments hold a dominant corporation accountable in the public interest.
May be it's because one of those organizations has monopoly on violence and other doesn't.
Re: Facebook’s tracking of non-users ruled illegal again in Europe
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "This law has to be enforced somewhere first." Still, the lawsuits should be simultaneously served to all companies. Preferably with a courtesy heads up.
The DPR has been implemented since 1998. GDPR had been announced 2012, implemented fully in 2016. Active enforcement will start May 2018 with again a temporary period to allow companies to correct. Refusal to comply after that can result in penalties up to a maximum of 4% of the companies global revenue. How much courtesy lead time does a company actually need to comply?
Especially when such company is pushing legions of developers reduce their "time to market".
"You have 20 seconds to comply" says the robocop :-)
Re: Facebook’s tracking of non-users ruled illegal again in Europe
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps there should be a central clearinghouse for people who don't want to be tracked by certain sites. How can you tell facebook to not track you without a facebook account? The best you can do is block various known IPs or other patterns which are bound to change over time.
How to tell Facebook that I don't want to be tracked? By not having a fucking Facebook account! it seems to me that's actually the crux of that court decision.
It knows a lot about you without you having an account though. I’d suggest getting an EU passport might be a good first step.
Re: Facebook’s tracking of non-users ruled illegal again in Europe
#116>“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?
> ethical? Yes, tracking cookies is ethical. If some internet users do not want to get tracked - they can run their browser in Incognito Mode.
Opt out crap used to be physically mailed to people until it was made illegal. It’s a new version for the same gross behaviour.
Re: Facebook’s tracking of non-users ruled illegal again in Europe
#117Earlier 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.
Websites in the Netherlands (and German public broadcasters) already follow the original ideal:
Before accessing the website, you get a choice between yes and no.
If you select no, the site will not do any tracking, no analytics — some sites disable ads in that case entirely. You still get to access the site.
If you select yes, you getthe tracking.
Re: Facebook’s tracking of non-users ruled illegal again in Europe
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
You add in the word "foreign" for no apparent reason. What makes you think the EU is targeting FB for being American? I see no proof of this. Size, sure, but the EU also has many regulations for the internal market. For example, we actually have net neutrality, and there's now regulations to limit roaming charges.
The argument they’ve made is that they are targeting FB and not their competitors. If true, it has many possible abusive implications, one of the common ones being protectionism. It might not be that, but it is a huge red flag that it could be that.
If you are going to accuse you ought probably be able to back up the argument or don't bother to waste other readers time.
Re: Facebook’s tracking of non-users ruled illegal again in Europe
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
This law has to be enforced somewhere first. Either it is enforced against Facebook first, and Facebook complains "Why don't all of the the small fries have to do it yet" and if it is enforced against the small fries, they will say, "Why doesn't Facebook have to do it yet"? And the answer is, the justice department will probably enforce the law in the way that the expect to have the best effect for themselves. It is…
> "This law has to be enforced somewhere first." Still, the lawsuits should be simultaneously served to all companies. Preferably with a courtesy heads up.
That's not how the law works in most European countries. Class actions don't exist, so the usual strategy is to sue the biggest company or greatest offender, since that results most likely in the best defence or the best case.
The summary of the court of the case, if ruled in favor of the one suing or in favor of the public interest, will be used to prosecute all other offenders if they do not comply. If the defense wins, it can be used by others as a defense.
While not 'fair' it works as the smaller fish will probably go bottoms up trying to mount a proper defense against larger governmental or lobbying groups which results in a no-win scenario for all: The company is dead and there is still no ruling, or a ruling lacking proper defense.
Re: Facebook’s tracking of non-users ruled illegal again in Europe
#120I suppose US could tax those non-US users so that using fb would cost them something.... Oh wait...
If facebook can't make money without breaking the law it can opt not to service that market.