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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

#341

Post by Silhouette »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #339
Silhouette wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know of any case when businesses decided to self-regulate themselves out of potential extra profit Hello. I have moral objections to excessive tracking, and none of my businesses use things like retargeting based on tracking pixels, even though this would almost certainly improve the conversion rates for our online ads significantly. There, now you've seen a case where a business self-regulated out of potenti…

Thanks! Sad you don't link to your businesses in your profile; now that you made me want to check them out and maybe reward with money.

Ah, the perils of pseudonymity! Thank you for the nice thought all the same. :-)

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

#342

Post by kradeelav »

propogandist wrote: post #55
Giroflex wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ghostery was bought out by another company looking to expand a privacy browser, but original firm (now called Evidon) is in the business of data mining information from Ghostery plugins - "Ghostery’s B2B Digital Governance solutions will reassume the company’s original Evidon brand, which focuses on monitoring and consent solutions ...Evidon will retain aggregated data about trackers, ensuring no change to the servic…

I've heard Privacy Badger (connected with the EFF) is a good one as well.

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

#344

Post by dalbasal »

Sylos wrote: post #333
dalbasal wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I can't go forward without reiterating the argument, so I guess I'll stop. But, I think considering it easy is naive, considering the mountain of experience to the contrary. Some things are hard to solve with laws.

It's even harder to solve without laws. And it needs solving.

And, are Italians now enjoying better privacy than the rest of us?

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

#345

Post by s73v3r_ »

fwdpropaganda wrote: post #205

I'm genuinely surprised that in this thread we're not seeing the usual idea that this is just the oppressive EU trying to exploit poor American companies. Is it because the article relates to evil Facebook and not Google?

I think it's because most people in this community (hopefully) see invasive tracking as being a terrible thing, which is why most of us run ad-blockers.

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

#346

Post by s73v3r_ »

simion314 wrote: post #210
fwdpropaganda wrote: post #205

I'm genuinely surprised that in this thread we're not seeing the usual idea that this is just the oppressive EU trying to exploit poor American companies. Is it because the article relates to evil Facebook and not Google?

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…

"Also give me examples of EU companies that track users on most of the internet."

Well, FB is headquartered in Ireland...

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

#347

Post by dalbasal »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #334
dalbasal wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If so, that's not a bad result. What I fear is that there is no next FB because fewer people can "enter the market" that in this case is necessarily international .. can't because you need to start with a team of lawyers and compliance officers. FB is unlikely to get injured. They're big and rich and have a deep moat. It would take a lot to shave 5% off its revenue. Making a potential FB competitor restrict itself to…

Few people already could "enter the market" given the enormous resource requirements to compete with Facebook on it's own. That's not a regulatory thing; that's just a reflection of the reality that these large companies have massive amounts of resources, and similar amounts are needed to effectively compete.

I think we may be talking past eachother. No one can beat FB directly, with a half-decent chance of success. Lots could, with a very low chance of success.

If lots of people can "enter the market" the one of these might succeed. FB is just an example, but I also mean them. Most of these potential fb-killers don't know that they're competitive with FB.

Think of WhatsApp (again, just an example). They entered the market, at an angle. Within a few years, they threatened FB enough to get bought, just to eliminate the threat.

The end result isn't all that heartening, but everything up to that is. I'm not saying GDPR makes this impossible, just worried about the accumulation of these things. Even a handful of reasonable rules could make things harder, especially if they are different in every country. WhatsApp might have decided to focus on a few core markets, and limited their idea to more local things.

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

#348

Post by Sylos »

cantagi wrote: post #254
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #152

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?!?

If Facebook's business model is built around collecting and selling personal data, and more than 4% of their revenue globally comes from EU citizens, then they could decide to wilfully flout GDPR and just pay the maximum fine every year. Another way they could deal with it is by disputing the EU-US privacy shield[1] or disputing the decision that overturned the original privacy safe harbour[2]. IANAL so I have no ide…

If a court rules that something you're doing violates the law, then that also means that you actually have to stop doing it. Not stopping with it would be a felony.

So, you can't just continuously pay fines whenever a court rules another time that it's illegal. The fine for a felony is much higher and at some point, you'd also simply be thrown out, or blocked in the case of Facebook, I suppose.

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

#349

Post by simion314 »

polskibus wrote: post #337
simion314 wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax how? FB users do not pay, and this case is for non FB users, will you tax non FB users because they do not use FB? Maybe send the army or CIA to change some governments, some citizens dare not have FB accounts, they must have something to hide /s

I was jokingly referring to recent tariffs announced by US administration, trying to think how a potential retaliatory action from US gov could look like. By the way tax doesnt have to be % only, it can have an absolute minimum too.

Ah, I am not from US so I did not understand the joke, but no tax or EULA could have an effect for people that are not FB users.

Even if I have an FB account I do not want FB to follow me and say scrape my HN comments and mine them for data.

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

#350

Post by chimeracoder »

lovich wrote: post #338
chimeracoder wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lobbying as a term in the US is pretty synonymous with donating money. This is flat-out untrue, and repeating this incorrect meme ad nauseum simply makes it harder to address actual problems when they arise. Lobbying is simply the process of petitioning elected officials. It's a necessary part of any functioning democracy, or else there's no fundamental feedback loop connecting elected officials to their constituen…

What you've stated is true by the technical definition of the term, but lobbying in the _common vernacular_ of the United States is synonymous with paying money. You can throw dictionary definitions around all you want but it doesn't change how it's commonly used. The same issue comes up with the word theory to scientists vs it's meaning in the common vernacular. As to your second part about corporate entities being…

> The same issue comes up with the word theory to scientists vs it's meaning in the common vernacular.

Yes, and just as we ignore people who dismiss evolution because "it's just a theory", we should take the same attitude towards people who conflate lobbbying and campaign contributions, because they clearly don't understand how the democratic process works, and acting on their demands is actively harmful.

> What you've stated is true by the technical definition of the term, but lobbying in the _common vernacular_ of the United States is synonymous with paying money.

Yes, and the "common vernacular" is wrong and actively harmful. The two things are completely unrelated, and perpetuating the conflation makes it harder to understand what's actually going on.

If you think something is broken, you actually have to understand how it's broken in order to fix it. There's no virtue in going out of your way to make it more difficult for people to understand how things work. That's how you end up with people wasting time advocating "reforms" that span the range from "well-intentioned but redundant and/or ineffective" to "completely self-contradictory and nonsensical".

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