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

#261

Post by jtbayly » Mon, Mar 05, 2018, 2:06 PM UTC

gregknicholson wrote: post #170

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?

> to grow their businesses Very much not an excuse. It's up to the business to work out how to do this within the law. > and reach customers If I am not a Facebook user I am not your customer.

It bears repeating that Facebook users aren’t their customers either. They are the product.

It is even worse to be made into a product that FB sells when you aren’t even a FB user.

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

#262

Post by Ftuuky » Mon, Mar 05, 2018, 2:06 PM UTC

eeZah7Ux wrote: post #193

Ftuuky wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct. On average, EU and US have about the same corruption, at least according to the Corruption Index 2017 [0] [0] https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_percept...

I wonder if the index treats lobbying and donation millions to support elections as corruption. Such activities are illegal and considered corruption in most countries.

Good question. I have to admit that I haven't read their methodology yet.

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

#263

Post by Sir_Cmpwn » Mon, Mar 05, 2018, 2:06 PM UTC

2aa07e2 wrote: post #197

My question is, will I be able to use gmail without my google searches being tracked? Google did a great job to "bundle" its ToS into a single generic agreement for all the services under that "Your Google account" umbrella. I would love to opt out of that agreement, retroactively, and still be able to use gmail.

You can't interact with Google in any way without being tracked. Use DuckDuckGo and another mail service like ProtonMail or your own self hosted solution.

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

#264

Post by halukakin » Mon, Mar 05, 2018, 2:12 PM UTC

By saying "cookies and pixels" they are trying to downplay what they are really doing. On a website where facebook pixel is installed, they track pretty much every form submitted and even the contents of those form submissions.

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

#265

Post by simion314 » Mon, Mar 05, 2018, 2:12 PM UTC

fwdpropaganda wrote: post #212

simion314 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if a court in country X finds the fact that tracking non FB users is illegal the Americans should side with the criminal because X!=USA, Google and FB are the biggest companies that do this illegal things so it is so obvious that citizens and organization with sue this big companies and not some obscure forum in country X(if there is such small company that can even track users outside it's own website) Also give…

> So if a court in country X finds the fact that tracking non FB users is illegal the Americans should side with the criminal because X!=USA, Google and FB are the biggest companies that do this illegal things so it is so obvious that citizens and organization with sue this big companies and not some obscure forum in country X(if there is such small company that can even track users outside it's own website) Not sure…

US has many internet and software companies, you have FB, Google, Microsoft, Apple , I can't even name an EU company, I know that SUSE Linux is in Germany so it makes sense that on HN front page you will see this big companies and not some small EU company.

As an example in Romania, Microsoft was caught doing illegal things, they corrupted government people to buy tons of licenses, we should not wait for an EU company to do the same before investigating this MS issue. The fact that some other companies also bribed some other people should not affect the MS case.

I am not sure if the MS case even reached MSW top page, but if it were some small software company outside US it would not appear on HN at all, only on local press, so HN from page has a bias for big US companies

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

#266

Post by lerpa » Mon, Mar 05, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

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?

In a sane world they shouldn't be liable of anything if a person from another country uses their website.

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

#267

Post by candu » Mon, Mar 05, 2018, 2:17 PM 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…

...and one obvious answer is: as one of the largest companies doing this, they benefit more than all of those other corporations.

Also: from the jurisdiction's point of view, this is perhaps the only efficient way to allocate legal / judicial resources. You go after a small handful of big-name "make an example" cases, and hope that this deters use of the business strategy by the long tail of smaller companies you can't afford to go after.

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

#268

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 05, 2018, 2:19 PM UTC

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #31

jsemrau wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stuff like this makes me so mad. 1. I don't have an account on Facebook. 2. Blocked Facebook domains via /etc/hosts 3. Use ghostery And despite all of these steps it feels like we are wasting our brightest minds to always be a step ahead in surveilling what the humans of this world are doing to exploit it for targeted advertising.

Rest assured, many of the brightest minds are aware of Facebook's business models and incentives, and many of them predicted the current situation and rejected the company many years ago.

[deleted]

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

#269

Post by Feniks » Mon, Mar 05, 2018, 2:21 PM UTC

mseebach wrote: post #229

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 think corruption is the worry so much here, it's the erosion of the rule of law when regulators and courts are seen to bask in the popularity of enforcing the law against certain high-profile targets, especially when the perception is that this target has been particularly zealously pursued, instead of dryly and boringly applying the law equally to everybody without passion. That erosion is not corruption on…

Its quite normal in my opinion for the police to invest more resources in pursuing a kidnapping case than a bicycle theft.

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

#270

Post by emiliobumachar » Mon, Mar 05, 2018, 2:22 PM UTC

krisdol wrote: post #219

TomMarius wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

EU stands for European Union.

Yeah, but in context, is the claim of being less corrupt being made about pan-EU institutions, or does it extend to the countries making up the union? The relevancy of individual country statistic depends of that distinction.