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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

#31

Post by TAForObvReasons »

jsemrau wrote: post #17
rhizome wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter, since it doesn't even make it legal.

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.

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

#32

Post by tachyoff »

volgo wrote: post #22
oh_sigh wrote: post #21

Earlier 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 can you tell facebook to not track you without a facebook account? That's the wrong question to ask. You shouldn't have to tell it not to track you. That shouldn't be able to do it, unless you explicitly tell them "hey you can track me."

Precisely. The Overton window for this topic seems to have shifted pretty far. The default position should be one of positive consent and assumed privacy. But then again, I think it’s all moot considering that Facebook’s existence is predicated on them collecting data. Asking them to do less of it is like asking a plant to stop photosynthesizing. That is to say: it’s their whole raison d’être, which means they won’t change it without a little encouragement from third parties.

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

#33

Post by fardo »

oh_sigh wrote: post #21
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.

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.

>Perhaps there should be a central clearinghouse for people who don't want to be tracked by certain sites.

This the most G. K. Chesterton-esque comment I have ever read on this site.

Poe's law may apply, but if you're actually being serious, "Let's build a list tracking all the people who want to avoid tracking" first, probably wouldn't work, and second, is the surveillance equivalent of a "standards problem" [1]

[1]: https://xkcd.com/927/

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

#34

Post by IntronExon »

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.

...and promptly took a job at a Google? Sorry, but someone is working for these companies, and they’re clearly bright enough to make the necessary tools. I’m sure some extremely bright and principled people refuse to work with anything like an Orwellian nightmare, but enough do to make up the difference.

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

#35

Post by Giroflex »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #18

Ironically, DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials blocks 15 tracking networks on TechCrunch, including connect.facebook.net.

Was about to post the same. Ghostery for me reports 22 trackers on the website, 3 of which are from facebook, including the "pixel" tracker that is mentioned in the article.

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

#36

Post by adamnemecek »

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?

" thousands of businesses to grow their businesses and reach customers across the EU"

EU doesn't care about this. Like this argument works only in the US.

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

#37

Post by tzs »

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-essential data use, [...]

This raises a bunch of questions. Anyone know the answer to any of these?

1. Suppose that the data is used to pay for keeping the site afloat? Does that make it essential?

> [...] you always need to provide opt-out without degrading the service

2. Suppose my site is presented as a site that has basic and premium content. The premium content is behind a subscription paywall.

On the paywall, it offers to waive the subscription fee if you consent to non-essential data use. If you either do not consent, or, after consenting later change your mind and opt-out, is it "degrading the service" if I no longer let you have access to the material behind the paywall?

3. In #2, does it matter if that's how my site works for people that I can identify as being the EU, but works different for people elsewhere (e.g., for people in the US it collects data on everyone and does not offer the option to pay)?

4. Suppose I just say "the hell with this...I don't want to deal with GDPR", and have my site ask first time visitors if they are in the EU or EU citizens.

If they say that are not, I set a cookie that records this, and they get my normal site, which only follows whatever data collection rules my country imposes.

If they say they are, I just send them to a page that says EU people are not allowed to use my site.

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?

[1] In fact, most of the data we keep on EU customers is data that we don't even want to keep, but the EU is requiring us to keep it for VAT MOSS reporting. Before VAT MOSS, all our EU sales went through a UK entity, and we paid UK VAT on all of them, which required much less information for reporting.

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

#38

Post by [deleted] »

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-…

[deleted]

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

#39

Post by seanmcdirmid »

chii wrote: post #20
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…

nobody likes to be made an example of. However, regulators like to make examples of bigger corporations since the publicity is more effective with them, and also they are able to both pay up and/or change.

Fair application of regulations is essential to rule of law. Going after one company for a common practice but not others is simply the more tyrannical rule by law.

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

#40

Post by [deleted] »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #39
chii wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nobody likes to be made an example of. However, regulators like to make examples of bigger corporations since the publicity is more effective with them, and also they are able to both pay up and/or change.

Fair application of regulations is essential to rule of law. Going after one company for a common practice but not others is simply the more tyrannical rule by law.

[deleted]
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