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Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

#371

Post by hanspeter »

Kenji wrote: post #23

I don't understand why the state has to become involved. Let the free market work and people decide for themselves. I stopped using WhatsApp the moment I read that facebook bought it.

So in order for a company to violate your privacy without losing you as a user, they just need to not be acquired by Facebook?

Edit: My point is that you will not automatically have your privacy violated when a service is acquired by Facebook and most importantly your privacy will not automatically be safe on a service merely because they have not been proven to violate privacy for the time being.

Re: Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

#372

Post by sasvari »

harry8 wrote: post #348
sasvari wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

compared to signal, telegram can be used by android users without gapps (the telegram client can be installed via f-droid). as much as I would like to use signal, I can't.

compared to signal, telegram stores all your messages on a server you don't control in plaintext. It's not the answer.

if you use e2e encryption, it doesn't.

Re: Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

#373

Post by thecatspaw »

cortesoft wrote: post #364
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because for example you could have sent them an Email, SMS or called at some point and are in their phone contacts/contact book. That user then shared their phone contacts with FB. So even though you may not have signed up for FB, they have [your name]{your number} in a table somewhere so that when and if you do sign-up it will be easy to link you with people you already have contacted.

You know, in the old days everyone had a whole book that was basically a table of everyone's name and phone number. It was called the telephone book.

sure, but that telephone book didnt include the conversations you had with everyone in there

Re: Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

#374

Post by wvh »

pjlegato wrote: post #357
achou wrote: post #251

A former colleague of mine who was a distinguished academic and successful tech executive grew up in East Germany. After the Berlin wall fell, he was able to enter the building where they kept the dossiers. He found his own file and was astounded by the information they had on him. His friends, his work, his habits. Photos of himself going about his business. His social circles. His friends were equally shocked by th…

And yet Germany operates a massively well-funded federal security service that is conducting exactly that sort of mass surveillance today -- only now far more sophisticated than even Facebook, since they can surveil the entire Internet, in exactly the same manner as the NSA does. Other European countries are doing the same. It's at best naive and at worst hypocritical to pretend that Europeans care so much more about…

What a "democratically elected" government does and what private people think is acceptable are not necessarily the same thing. There's often a surprisingly strong discrepancy between government action and the will of the people.

Also, a lot of people feel that the government (in a Western/Northern European country) is mostly trying to protect its society even if some actions are misguided, while it's hard to make a statement about the benevolence of large corporations. Governments ought to be loyal to its citizens, while corporations only answer to their shareholders; their actions have no moral leeway nor are they beneficial to the majority of people. Facebook is not trying to protect society, it's trying to benefit from it.

In most EU countries you are entitled by law to request to see and even demand removal of any data any company has on you at any time. This has been problematic in the past but will clash hard in the future with companies based outside the EU wanting to do business – or whatever name you want to call the activities of internet giants – with EU citizens.

Re: Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

#375

Post by rmc »

sgift wrote: post #311
danarmak wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is very useful in most cases. Suppose a service requires data transmission to operate, either intrinsically, or it just chooses to require it. It displays a checkbox, unchecked by default, and unless the user checks it, the service isn't going to work; checking the checkbox is functionally equivalent to the "I Agree" TOS button. I expect users will check the checkbox without reading any explanation…

German data law is very strict, so yes, it is useful: - You can only take as much as you need - You cannot ask for data for one thing and use it for another - You have to clearly state what data you will use for what purpose - The opt-in has to be distinct from other opt-ins (so, 100 pages of EULA and then a checkbox "I accept" doesn't cut it) The only problem here is that the penalities for breaking the data protect…

> German data law is very strict

Technically this law is European-wide, not just Germany. It's from the EU, and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (Basically the EU's Bill of Rights). Article 8 lists your personal data rights.

The EU/US Safe Harbour was invalidated by the Court of Justice of the EU, after an Austrian person took a case against Facebook in Ireland.

> The only problem here is that the penalities for breaking the data protection laws aren't very high ..

DPAs have the authority to force companies to stop doing things. They might not be able to fine Facebook a meaningful amount, but they can get a court order to stop them doing it.

> I'd like to see percentages of a companies revenue.

That is being proposed.

Re: Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

#376

Post by rmc »

danarmak wrote: post #206
rmc wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The TOS does need to express the desired purpose and to hold up in court if required Why? What if the "desired purpose" (desired by the company) is illegal? Then such a ToS/contract is not, and should not be legal. What the Data Protection agency is doing here, is saying that what WhatsApp/Facebook are doing is illegal. > The GPL is much shorter than most click-through TOSs The GPL is a copyright licence so doesn't…

> Why? What if the "desired purpose" (desired by the company) is illegal? My comment was badly worded. What I meant was that, if the license's meaning was disputed in court, the court should agree that it meant what the company intended for it to mean. And that is one purpose of unclear legalese in TOS. (Deliberate obfuscation, and increasing lawyers' fees, are also purposes, but not the only ones.) > What the Data P…

> What I meant was that, if the license's meaning was disputed in court, the court should agree that it meant what the company intended for it to mean.

And my point is that sometimes what the company intends/wants is illegal. And the courts should

For example, a company might want employees to sign away rights to minimum wage. We can clearly see what the company intends in that contract, but the courts will not agree with it.

"Contracts are sacred and unbreakable" is an ethical/legal stance associated with libertarianism, and it is not what many countries follow.

Re: Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

#377

Post by rmc »

germanier wrote: post #250
rmc wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extreme non-techies will say "WhatsApp is broken, use this app instead". People who read the news will know it's about the US companies wanting to spy on your data (remember Germans don't have US 4th Amendment rights), and will switch apps.

I'm not convinced German constitutional protections are weaker than the 4th Amendment. The constitution even includes a right to the guarantee of confidentiality and integrity of information technology systems as ruled by the constitutional court. https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Entscheid...

> I'm not convinced German constitutional protections are weaker than the 4th Amendment.

Here's a report from the EU commission about why the US constitutional/legal protection is much less than the EU (and hence German) equivalent:

    http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2015/519215/IPOL_STU%282015%29519215_EN.pdf
Basically: Unlike the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, US 4th Amendment doesn't cover non-US people outside the US, and it only covers government warrents. What Facebook does with your data is not covered by the 4th Amendment. What Facebook does with your data is covered by Article 8 of the EUCFR.

Re: Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

#378

Post by rmc »

kuschku wrote: post #347
germanier wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced German constitutional protections are weaker than the 4th Amendment. The constitution even includes a right to the guarantee of confidentiality and integrity of information technology systems as ruled by the constitutional court. https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/SharedDocs/Entscheid...

I think the argument is more that Facebook is a US company, Facebook isn’t bound by German law (unless they operate in Germany, which they do), and the 4th Amendment only applies to Americans.

> Facebook isn’t bound by German law (unless they operate in Germany, which they do)

If you're not in the USA or Canada, and use Facebook, your agreement is with Facebook Ireland Ltd, and bound by Irish, and European, data protection law.

A Facebook user in India has EU data protection rights.

Re: Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

#379

Post by tdkl »

sasvari wrote: post #308
glasz wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

telegram was sort of a bad choice: https://www.eff.org/node/82654 signal desktop (granted, stupid chrome plugin but official): signal.org/desktop

compared to signal, telegram can be used by android users without gapps (the telegram client can be installed via f-droid). as much as I would like to use signal, I can't.

Wire messenger uses websocket and doesn't need Google Play Services.

Re: Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

#380

Post by khabaal »

patrickaljord wrote: post #134
khabaal wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did not. Opt-Out is not asking for consent. And even if you Opt-Out, WhatsApp will submit your data to facebook for analytic purposes. The real problem here was quoted as "misdirection of the [whatsapp] users and the public" because WhatsApp stated that there wont be any data exchange between them and facebook, when they were accuired two years ago.

Doesn't the Whatsapp TOS says that they can update that TOS whenever and however they want? Do you have to accept that TOS before using Whatsapp for the first time? So users accepted a TOS that says Whatsapp can change their rules as they wish and now they are angry because they did just that? I totally support people who don't like these kind of TOS and use open source alternative, but people who accepted these kind…

Here in Germany, saying that, after being accuired by facebook, you wont exchange any data with facebook, was a huge sales pitch because people started to get really worried about data privacy.

Even people like my mother, who normally has no idea about whats going on, were worried back then but then calmed down by that statement. And the media, where this had quickly became an issue, stopped reporting, because everything seemed to turn out fine.

But now, they broke that promise and altered their product, which now results in those accusations of misdirection of the users and the public. They made that statement, people everywhere became reliant to whatsapp and now everything stated before turned out to be a lie.

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