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Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

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Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#21

Post by hbosch »

I can't help but read this headline in light of the Equifax ("Equihax") story also on the front page today. "Tracking without consent" seems an odd reason for a government to crack down on a business. Perhaps Google and Facebook, in Europe, aren't allowed to "track without consent" – but other companies can and do. Not just Amazon, as a direct comparison, but apparently credit bureaus and the government themselves are allowed to track me without my consent.

I generally agree that "tracking without consent" is invasive, but if a government is going to use it as a way to extort tech companies for fines I would appreciate a little more consistency in who is being called out.

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#22

Post by watwut »

marian0_ wrote: post #3
Mahn wrote: post #2

I don't have anything against regulations and fines to keep monopolistic companies in check, but that being said, as an European, I can't help but feel a little appalled that there's so much focus on this and so little on actually creating European Googles and Facebooks.

I on the other hand enjoy having high taxes (i.e. good services) and lower wages while the US creates all the products I need and it is them who are on the brink of a civil war over inequality.

Civil war in US would be catastrophic for pretty much everyone in EU. Just saying.

Our economies are very dependent. That alone would be catastrophic. It would make Russia, China etc more confident in taking more territories and putting more demands on EU. Handle refugees from there would put a lot of strain on us too. If not-nice-people would won, and civil wars tend to be won by wannabe dictators, we would be even in bigger trouble.

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#23

Post by aaron-lebo »

t1o5 wrote: post #13

Facebook tried to pull a similar gimmick in India called "Free Basics". It was dealt with criticism and the regulatory authority in India was smart enough to reject the proposal. Reliance, one of the sheepskin corporation in India wanted to embrace Free Basics with Facebook but could not. Now Reliance is trying a similar act with "Jio" cellphones. Its a good thing that many countries are realizing that US based monop…

It makes me weirdly happy as an American to see it happen. What happens when instead of massive, boring, soulless, mediocre corporations like Facebook serving 2 billion sharecroppers, we've got multiple or even dozens of smaller networks serving regions and niches? That has the potential for innovation we can't begin to understand. Facebook is akin to McDonald's not only spreading internationally but also replacing all other restaurants once it gets in a country. Who likes Big Macs that much?

It's why we should criticize the actions of any power (whether the Us, China, the EU, Russia) to control citizens and eliminate smaller cultures. Maybe melodramatic but it's exciting. The growth of Chinese networks is interesting, wonder how they would develop under a democratic government? Further innovation or do they only exist because of that environment as you suggest?

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#24

Post by ryandrake »

jacquesm wrote: post #18
fwn wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The EU considers the death penalty as a cruel, inhuman and irreversible punishment which fails to act as a deterrent to criminal behaviour. http://www.eidhr.eu/highlights/death-penalty edit: Hmm, now I'm not sure whether you meant a companies metaphorical death? ..I'll leave it here anyhow. :)

Revocation of corporate charter is the equivalent of the death penalty for a corporation.

Doesn't happen often (at all?) and even if it did, what stops the company's leadership from starting a new, identical company with a identical board, employee list, etc. the next second?

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#25

Post by jacquesm »

ryandrake wrote: post #24
jacquesm wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revocation of corporate charter is the equivalent of the death penalty for a corporation.

Doesn't happen often (at all?) and even if it did, what stops the company's leadership from starting a new, identical company with a identical board, employee list, etc. the next second?

Jail?

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#26

Post by RivieraKid »

Mahn wrote: post #2

I don't have anything against regulations and fines to keep monopolistic companies in check, but that being said, as an European, I can't help but feel a little appalled that there's so much focus on this and so little on actually creating European Googles and Facebooks.

> so little on actually creating European Googles and Facebooks

How though?

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#28

Post by RivieraKid »

Mahn wrote: post #2

I don't have anything against regulations and fines to keep monopolistic companies in check, but that being said, as an European, I can't help but feel a little appalled that there's so much focus on this and so little on actually creating European Googles and Facebooks.

The US (and China) have the advantage of a large homogenous market. That's probably one of the main reason why Google, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and others originated in the US.

Re: Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent

#30

Post by serhei »

t1o5 wrote: post #13

Facebook tried to pull a similar gimmick in India called "Free Basics". It was dealt with criticism and the regulatory authority in India was smart enough to reject the proposal. Reliance, one of the sheepskin corporation in India wanted to embrace Free Basics with Facebook but could not. Now Reliance is trying a similar act with "Jio" cellphones. Its a good thing that many countries are realizing that US based monop…

To paint a less rosy picture, many countries are good at keeping out US based tracking / social media monopolies because they want to support their own tracking / social media monopolies. It's kind of a "well, duh" moment that China is going to support its own Internet services rather than let that data be collected by people in the United States.

Russia has a similar government-backed Internet services ecosystem going on, although they dropped the ball on blogging and wound up having to do a complex operation to buy Livejournal (where all the Russians were) and move the servers to Russian territory.

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