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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

#151

Post by dalbasal »

kome wrote: post #139
dalbasal wrote: post #122

Two kind of related points. The jurisdiction stuff is disturbing. Having separate rules/rulings for Belgium, Turkey, Venezuela, etc... It's (a) not practical and will end up helping incumbents .(b) It really curbs the internet's ability to promote an open information norm. Privacy is an issue and we need to do something about it. But, I have a real feeling cencorship, corporate-protectionism, copyright and other agen…

> The jurisdiction stuff is disturbing. That's like saying that democracy is disturbing, but it's the best we have got. FB should respect laws in Belgium, that's it. I don't trust "governance", I trust "government": because it is only at a national level that we see a bit of democratic accountability.

I agree, national politics is the only politics we have. But, the internet does not exist within national confines, and I don't want it to.

In this case, I like the courts decision and FB is big enough to deal with it. What about a much smaller service dealing with polish cencorship laws, Turkish political content laws and 12 incompatible eu privacy laws. It can only end in either (a) overall ineffectiveness or (b) internet balkanization.

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

#152

Post by bryanrasmussen »

What is Facebook's end game here, I don't get it. GDPR is around the corner, it certainly won't fly under GDPR so why the jurisdiction argument even, the days for tracking people without consent is numbered - a rational organization would realize this.

I would think just say ok we stop doing it because we're going to have to stop doing it anyway. But they're not stopping, what is the plan?!?

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

#153

Post by a_imho »

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…

IMO the cookie law was good and (ianal) but a banner in your face is not consent, not in an opt-in way at least.

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

#154

Post by dalbasal »

igorkraw wrote: post #147
dalbasal wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk... Some of it could be good, but a legislative approach like this could just turn into a compliance bureaucracy that doesn't help much, but has all sorts of side effects. A lot of people are keen on industry regulations (which GDPR sort of is) but i think are not aware of (a) how bad the bad ones are and (b) the very dominant corporate/incumbent bias they give a market. You can't start a financial firm, tobacco c…

Oth: it's a calibration process. If the regulations are to onerous, we can loosen them again, or companies will spring up that make compliance easy. https://www.chargebee.com/ solves the European VAT nightmare for example, until we have harmonization on that front. Is it inefficient? Depends on your model of the world: I'd rather pay a bit more for my goods/services and know that my privacy and data autonomy are pres…

I don't have too much confidence in calibration. The legislative/regulative systems we have are not great at that. Legislation is principles and inflexible. Flexibility requires a more uprincipled, goal oriented approach. Also, goals (mine, anyway) like openness, cosmopolitanism, low barriers to entry and even playing fields... These are hard to measure.

In almost all cases, industry regulation (what this is, more or less) tend to be incumbent friendly. Ie, we could be moderating FB slightly in exchange for killing its future competition.

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

#155

Post by gsich »

TomMarius wrote: post #132
gsich wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

of course not I also don't see any advantage for the user, getting ads is not in their interest.

It is, if having access to the site is in their interest. The site needs ads to survive, they are a form of payment.

Yes, on their site. Not on any other site.

A somewhat related note: Relying solely on ads is a bad idea. Personally, I'll install an adblocker on every PC I get access to (family and friends stuff).

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

#156

Post by gsich »

emteycz wrote: post #140
xxs wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...or the site dies if ads are non-compliant. If there is some vacuum, it'd be filled by other monetization schemes.

What other monetization schemes? Noone is going to pay for access to a page with funny pictures, the site will cease to exist. Everything else will be behind a paywall and you call that an improvement? Up to this point in time, everyone had access to news, videos, science articles etc - for free. Those who didn't like being tracked had numerous options to avoid it. They also had the option to stop using these trackin…

Well then the site dies. Sites die all the time, why should Facebook be any different (on the long run of course)?

If users want your service, they will pay for it. If they don't, well then your services is not needed.

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

#158

Post by Angostura »

dalbasal wrote: post #131
jakobegger wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m looking forward to the GDPR. It seems to target all the failures of the cookie law. The GDPR will not allow blanket consent statements, it will not allow “permission bundling” (eg. allow acces to everything or you can’t use the site). The changes Twitter rolled out in preparation of the GDPR look like a good thing. We’ll see how it turns out, but I think the GDPR will actually force companies to change, beyond co…

Idk... Some of it could be good, but a legislative approach like this could just turn into a compliance bureaucracy that doesn't help much, but has all sorts of side effects. A lot of people are keen on industry regulations (which GDPR sort of is) but i think are not aware of (a) how bad the bad ones are and (b) the very dominant corporate/incumbent bias they give a market. You can't start a financial firm, tobacco c…

> A lot of people are keen on industry regulations (which GDPR sort of is) but i think are not aware of (a) how bad the bad ones are and (b) the very dominant corporate/incumbent bias they give a market.

I think rather than arguing in general terms that regulation is bad, it is more helpful to address any specific problems you have with GDPR. I've spent a few months looking at it at a small organisation that is having to implement it. My take is that its goals and the way they are implemented look pretty sound.

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

#159

Post by Angostura »

zmb_ wrote: post #136
jakobegger wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m looking forward to the GDPR. It seems to target all the failures of the cookie law. The GDPR will not allow blanket consent statements, it will not allow “permission bundling” (eg. allow acces to everything or you can’t use the site). The changes Twitter rolled out in preparation of the GDPR look like a good thing. We’ll see how it turns out, but I think the GDPR will actually force companies to change, beyond co…

> it will not allow “permission bundling” (eg. allow acces to everything or you can’t use the site) This is something I have not been able to come to terms with. I can understand requiring express consent to each item individually, rather than burying everything into a long ToS. But what I cannot understand is forcing me (as a service provider) into a contract with a customer even if the customer rejects some of my t…

> But what I cannot understand is forcing me (as a service provider) into a contract with a customer even if the customer rejects some of my terms.

I'm not sure what gives you that impression. If the customer rejects the terms, you are free to walk away.

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

#160

Post by seszett »

dalbasal wrote: post #149
kitd wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The jurisdiction stuff is disturbing. Having separate rules/rulings for Belgium, Turkey, Venezuela, etc... It's (a) not practical and will end up helping incumbents . (b) It really curbs the internet's ability to promote an open information norm. I find it disingenious of FaceBook to be serving all the EU equally, then claim that Belgium's jurisdiction doesn't cover them because they're based in Ireland. That sounds…

I agree, but they're swimming in disingenuous waters. Surely, they can't run 100 versions of the site to suit 100 legislative/court systems. Well, maybe Facebook can. Can tinder? What about the next Facebook?

> What about the next Facebook?

Maybe there can be no next Facebook (as in, one multinational actor is position of monopoly on one type of service) and maybe that's not a bad thing.

If the only way to have the same kind of service from now one is to use a network of separate entities each smaller than Facebook and interoperating between themselves, it might be a good side effect of the law.

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