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Norway court rules against Facebook owner Meta in privacy case

reuters.com

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Re: Norway court rules against Facebook owner Meta in privacy case

#51

Post by jorams »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #18

> Meta told a two-day court hearing in August it had already committed to ask for consent from users and that Datatilsynet used an "expedited process" that was unnecessary and did not give the company enough time to answer. So, in other words, Meta is complaining that Datatilsynet moved fast and broke things. Interesting.

> Datatilsynet used an "expedited process" that was unnecessary and did not give the company enough time to answer

The GDPR became enforceable 5 years ago, and this is their core business. This does not concern some ambiguous edge case, it's essentially the fundamental reason the law exists. Either they've been willfully breaking the law for 5 years and the fact that they haven't been fined out of existence should be considered a blessing, or the company is so incompetent that its continued existence is an unacceptable risk to the world.

Re: Norway court rules against Facebook owner Meta in privacy case

#52

Post by Tangurena2 »

glimshe wrote: post #37
konschubert wrote: post #2

I understand that what these companies are doing is illegal, and thus the court ruled correctly. But I cannot help but wonder if we, the public, are really focusing on the right thing here? Is "companies are using your reading history to target ads" really the same level of dangerous as "your government wants to read all your messages"? Why is the EU regulating privacy topics to the point were we no longer have acces…

The danger of them having this data is just too great. It's too much concentration of power. Would you trust the government with your voting preferences? Meta can know that with extremely high confidence based on the articles you read, people you follow etc. And while I'm not particularly trusting of the government, I'm even less trusting of zero-accountability, billionaire-led, Meta. Imagine the potential for abuse…

That sort of unaccountability is why Brexit happened, and why Trump got elected. That level of abuse by special interest groups need to stop.

Re: Norway court rules against Facebook owner Meta in privacy case

#53

Post by interactivecode »

souvic wrote: post #36

I think, most of the companies do that. And they are actually clueless what they can do, what data can be taken without being litigated. A global consensus may be a great thing for startups not having to worry about data laws focusing more on building the product. Will be good for EU Economy too. Global Consensus on these laws or a scanner app letting the startup owner know what you have unwillingly violated is highl…

I've been working at EU startups and tech for a while now. There isn't much worry about data laws. All the data you need for the real product you can get without even getting close to breaking any privacy laws.

It only gets very complicated when you start forwarding that data to 3rd parties, intensively tracking + storing user behaviour and engineering patterns aimed at deceiving how you use the data.

If you're that worried about keeping up to date on these types of rules, you can subscribe to the EU data protection newsletter, which will be a fairly decent overview on what's going on: https://edps.europa.eu/press-publications/publications/newsl...

Re: Norway court rules against Facebook owner Meta in privacy case

#54

Post by avgcorrection »

konschubert wrote: post #2

I understand that what these companies are doing is illegal, and thus the court ruled correctly. But I cannot help but wonder if we, the public, are really focusing on the right thing here? Is "companies are using your reading history to target ads" really the same level of dangerous as "your government wants to read all your messages"? Why is the EU regulating privacy topics to the point were we no longer have acces…

> Is "companies are using your reading history to target ads" really the same level of dangerous as "your government wants to read all your messages"?'

... And why do you immediately navigate to this dichotomy? What purpose does it serve? Does bifurcating the issue serve any purpose?

I can't read minds so I don't know why you in particular are doing it, but the general answer to that is that private interests have waged a decades-long propaganda campaign with the message that everything that the government does is automatically suspect and nefarious, while everything some private interest group is completely okay.

But this is a false choice: just say no to both groups violating your privacy.

Re: Norway court rules against Facebook owner Meta in privacy case

#55

Post by iakov »

notyourwork wrote: post #49
Hamuko wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I don't have TikTok installed and never have?

You’re a contact in someone else’s profile who has you in their contact list.

Still not an equivalent to what Google and Meta are doing. Google and Meta are everywhere on the internet. Google controls the most popular browser. The volume of data that those two harvest is absurd.

Re: Norway court rules against Facebook owner Meta in privacy case

#56

Post by PeterisP »

souvic wrote: post #36

I think, most of the companies do that. And they are actually clueless what they can do, what data can be taken without being litigated. A global consensus may be a great thing for startups not having to worry about data laws focusing more on building the product. Will be good for EU Economy too. Global Consensus on these laws or a scanner app letting the startup owner know what you have unwillingly violated is highl…

No, this is not happening because they are clueless on what they can do - this is happening because they believe they can get away with this (by seeing that most companies do that). There is a clear global consensus on whether they are permitted do that (no, they can't), but there's also something resembling consensus that they'll keep waltzing over the boundary while they still can as regulators take their time with enforcement.

You don't have to worry about data laws unless you're trying to walk that line - and you should not. If you act reasonably and don't even attempt to track people unless they explicitly ask you to (which is what opt-in informed consent means) then you don't need to bother with the nuances. Megacorps are hiring privacy lawyers primarily because they want the lawyers to answer "what can we add/change to somehow keep doing this prohibited thing" instead of just stopping it.

When I hear from "unwillingly violated", most of the time it somehow comes from an organization blatantly and willingly violating the principles; indiscriminately harvesting data and basing their business model on that. Even for a startup, getting a quick 30 minute consultation on data privacy isn't a big deal, and compliance is trivial if you're willing to abandon prohibited ideas - GDPR compliance is primarily tricky for those who want to see what is the maximum amount of evil that is still legally permitted.

Re: Norway court rules against Facebook owner Meta in privacy case

#58

Post by anilgulecha »

josefx wrote: post #38
konschubert wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But these companies do not collect chat data. Whatsapp is end to end encrypted. It is my government who wants to break that encryption.

Except from what I can find WhatsApp seems to have an automated content moderation system that will automatically flag and forward messages to Meta for review. So the ability to bypass that encryption is already hardwired into the app.

>will automatically flag and forward messages to Meta

Citation please. Specially on automatically..

Re: Norway court rules against Facebook owner Meta in privacy case

#60

Post by josephcsible »

uncletammy wrote: post #59
rvz wrote: post #4

Good. Now do TikTok since we all know that is just as bad as Meta for their privacy violations as well.

TikTok trackers aren't built into my phone's operating system.

Yes they are: https://screenrant.com/tiktok-essential-app-samsung-install/
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