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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

#171

Post by AndyMcConachie »

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 this thing called legal precedent. You set it once and it can be applied over, and over, and over, and over....

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

#172

Post by rowyourboat »

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…

> 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."

"But, officer, everybody else was speeding, too!"

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

#173

Post by jonathanstrange »

TomMarius wrote: post #125
anigbrowl wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe hews to somewhat different legal and administrative philosophies from the US, and I don't think the EU is any more corrupt than the US, arguably less so. This subject is discussed very well in a favorite little book, Adversarial Legalism by Robert Kagan.

I don't know what you mean by EU, but most of EU countries except for the west are more corrupt than the US. EDIT: Downvotes? I'm stating facts. How can you downvote facts?

My guess is that you've been downvoted, because you've claimed that you don't know what the original poster meant by "EU".

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

#174

Post by vageli »

a_imho wrote: post #153
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…

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.

If you're made aware of the terms and can choose to leave, that's pretty much consent. Do you sign a paper agreeing to all the terms when you enter a car park? Of course not! It's a class of contracts called contracts of adhesion. [0]

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_form_contract

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

#175

Post by gregknicholson »

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #171
derefr wrote: post #13

Earlier 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…

There is this thing called legal precedent. You set it once and it can be applied over, and over, and over, and over....

Legal Java!

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

#176

Post by amelius »

rowyourboat wrote: post #172
derefr wrote: post #13

Earlier 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…

> 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." "But, officer, everybody else was speeding, too!"

s/speeding/downloading ;)

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

#177

Post by yardstick »

tzs wrote: post #37
mziel wrote: post #4

Looking forward to May (when GDPR officially comes into force). Provided that it doesn't end up like the cookie law (and there are explicit provisions in GDPR and ePrivacy to avoid that) this might shake up the ad industry: * Explicit consent for non-essential data use, you always need to provide opt-out without degrading the service * Opt-in/out separately for every activity (no more "research purposes") * Data dele…

Note: the following questions are not because I'm trying to figure out how to work around GDPR. They are to help figure out just what the meaning of it is. Imagining hypotheticals that try to work around a law is a common method in legal circles for clarifying the law. My employer does not keep any data that would be problematic, and compliance looks like it will be pretty easy for us [1]. > Explicit consent for non-…

> What's the situation if someone inside the EU lies and tells me that they are not in the EU? Am I in violation of GDPR for keeping forbidden data on them, or does their lying to me count as consent?

I don’t know the answer (interesting idea though). One thought came to mind: If you do it this way, you can only monetise your EU customers indirectly. As soon as you bill them, you’ll probably need to capture their address info at which point you know for sure they are in the EU. Yes you could argue it’s a non-EU citizen using an EU address while not being physically within the EU at the point of the transaction, but I wouldn’t think that would get a free pass in court.

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

#178

Post by dalbasal »

Angostura wrote: post #158
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…

> 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 havin…

I don't think that I did. Just pointing out some recurring themes, generally. We don't have that many examples and "regulation" is a fairly squishy category. But, I think anyone who's worked in a business where the word "compliance" comes up regularly has a clear idea of what this means.

Incumbent friendliness is a real concern. In my experience, it is taken as a given by industries facing potential "regulation".

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

#179

Post by EggsOnToast »

rowyourboat wrote: post #172
derefr wrote: post #13

Earlier 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…

> 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." "But, officer, everybody else was speeding, too!"

To be pedantic, I can attest that in California drivers ed they teach you that it's safest to keep with the flow of traffic. The difficulty is in proving that traffic was going as fast as you.

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

#180

Post by seszett »

EggsOnToast wrote: post #42
colmvp wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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. That's not really relevant to the parent's observation that Facebook is likely arguing that they're being singled out in an environment where their practices are so rampant as to…

> why is the law being enforced predominantly against a handful of American companies instead of the industry at large?

Because the largest companies that European citizens are using and that breaking the law are American. There is no point in targetting first the Chinese and Russian companies doing the same tracking, as few European citizens are affected. And as far as I know, there is zero European company doing the same thing on such a level.

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