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Facebook Ordered to Stop Collecting Data on WhatsApp Users in Germany

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

#91

Post by bpchaps »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #84
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason why government should forbid it is not to protect the individual that's agreeing to give away their data, but to protect society from the externalities of those transactions when they occur en masse. Privacy is a necessity for a democracy, without it, democracy falls apart, that is extremely dangerous, and that's why a democratic society should protect itself against it.

>The reason why government should forbid it is not to protect the individual that's agreeing to give away their data, but to protect society from the externalities of those transactions when they occur en masse. And now please explain to me what sort of voluntary agreement does not have negative externalities when it occurs en masse! Voluntary agreements inevitably create markets and markets have well known negative…

How does it lead to authoritarianism? You're making some pretty sweeping statements there..

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

#92

Post by yomly »

greggman wrote: post #40
smoyer wrote: post #7

Now things are going to get interesting! I completely understand the desire for privacy but I think it's unrealistic to expect that Facebook won't consolidate its data by user across all their applications. Facebook (and Google, etc.) are now in the same business as the credit reporting agencies ... You are their only product. My hope is that the increasing outrage will drive users to one of the secure messaging appl…

I'm not sure I mind FB collecting data on my when using FB directly. OTOH today I read a 10 minute article on an unrelated site about loneliness. When I got to the end of the article an in page popup appeared that said something along the lines of "Liked by 9571 people including your friend John Smith". I was extremely creeped out. What right does FB have for knowing that I read some article on an unrelated website?…

I keep Facebook script blocked on my main chrome instance. I therefore can only check Facebook on incognito (where script block is disabled).

The added friction of signing in every time to check Facebook has had the added benefit of stopping me visiting Facebook unconsciously. The amount of free time clawed back has been substantial!

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

#93

Post by DavideNL »

kbart wrote: post #14

“It has to be their decision, whether they want to connect their account with Facebook,” Johannes Caspar, the Hamburg data protection commissioner, said in a statement. “Therefore, Facebook has to ask for their permission in advance. This has not happened.” That's a fair point. I don't use WhatsApp, so did it asked to accept new privacy policy, terms & conditions or smth? Anyway, I'm happy to see that institutions in…

> so did it asked to accept new privacy policy, terms & conditions or smth?

they played a trick on everyone by hiding the relevant question/info behind an "extra info" button that nobody will ever click

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

#94

Post by jagermo »

0xmohit wrote: post #36

Quoting from the link: Facebook said on Tuesday, after the order had been issued, that it had complied with Europe’s privacy rules and that it was willing to work with the German regulator to address its concerns. Two Indian students challenged Facebook on WhatsApp privacy policy changes [0]. The following is what WhatsApp counsel told [1]: Using the messaging service is a voluntary decision, we have not forced anybo…

How are the privacy laws in India? Couldn't the students sue?

to be honest, if the pressure was just from two individuals, I'd also say something like Facebook.

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

#95

Post by yulaow »

rglullis wrote: post #48
yulaow wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privacy is strongly regulated in EU, there was a strong push for it from both our legislators and normal citizens. We asked the states to be involved and not let the "free market" decide by itself. In my state one of the most important and independent role in government is the "Privacy Regulator" which has the power to check, verify and impose strong regulations on how you manage others data, and is very active.

I'm sad to inform you, this is a horrible trap you and many Europeans fall into. All of this legislation comes from lobby groups representing the big telcos, who are just desperately looking for ways to keep the OTT's away. Just a couple of weeks ago a draft bill was published indicating that OTT's must be able to comply with the same regulations as a telco, which means, among things like "ability to call emergency s…

Whatever you are citing is not competence of the "Privacy Regulator" nor it can take any decision on it.

The Privacy Regulator rather is pushing for strong end-to-end encryption to protect user data, at least in my country. You are citing something totally different and out of his scope.

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

#96

Post by pluma »

rmc wrote: post #51
codingmyway wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This all comes back to the two-faced saying of one thing loud and publicly while in the small print buried in legalese proclaiming something else. That practice needs to be illegal. It is basically fraud.

One aspect of European data protection is "freely given, informed consent". You can only do what the user has consented to. If a company loudly says "We'll never share it" and the ToS says "We can share it", then what has the user consented to? You could make a case that the user is consenting the loud proclamations. EU data protection law doesn't allow dense legalise behind a click-through as "consent". So maybe EU…

German law basically says that terms of service and end user license agreements can't contain surprises. If a service explicitly states it doesn't do certain things, the user hasn't consented to the service doing those things, even if the ToS or EULA contain a snippet in fine print saying the service may actually do these things after all.

This already bit WhatsApp when they tried to ban users for using alternative clients. A German court ruled while they may block those alternative clients, banning the user is unexpected because most other services don't have that kind of policy on alternative clients.

So they could have still kept that policy but they would have to make it unambiguously clear and draw attention to it outside the ToS or EULA because it's something users wouldn't expect from that kind of service.

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

#97

Post by forgottenpass »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #39
bonoboTP wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe yes, maybe not. So what? It should still be forbidden. If it turns out that not enough people want to pay for it, then tough luck for the company, they should design something that people will pay for. For example it is forbidden to take organs from people as payment. We could forbid taking certain private data from masses of people as payment.

If you put trade in organs in the same basket as trade in conclusions from personal data, then I have to wonder what you put in the other basket, the one where consenting adults are allowed to freely enter into agreements. If you are criticising that people are not willingly and knowingly entering into agreements with Facebook or Google, that is another debate. Yes I think there should be the utmost level of transpar…

consenting adults are allowed to freely enter into agreements.

I accept as a fact of modern life, that I unless I want to go be a hermit in the woods, I'll find myself entering into many contracts of adhesion that go against my ideals. And that as much as I try to limit this (not using facebook or whatsapp) I can't actually escape them entirely.

It is disingenuous to think that either (a) people fully understand and knowingly make the agreements they do w/r/t data or (b) do so willingly.

To draw the conclusion that it's just adults freely consenting in light of the previous paragraph is sophistry.

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

#98

Post by kaybe »

rglullis wrote: post #76
kaybe wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So would you say the situation is worse than elsewhere? Especially considering we are not US citizens and thus free game under the US constitution.

All that I can say is that if we actually had free markets, one's citizenship wouldn't matter at all. For better or for worse, it would be up to individuals to inform ourselves and seek privacy, security and financial profits as we see fit.

And we'd be up individually against huge conglomerates full of lawyers and psychologists trying to trick us. Without some sort of organization with comparable power on the consumer's side, this is not a very bright proposition.

edit: (Bright not as in 'intelligent', but as in 'bright future'.)

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

#99

Post by veddox »

retox wrote: post #44
kriro wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes I wonder if the strategy of announcing "due to the anti commercial data privacy demands in Germany we are forced to suspend all German WA accounts for the next couple of days" is ever discussed at Facebook. I'd be interested to see the political pressure it would create. I think the network is strong enough that people won't switch to other apps instantly and there would be a pretty big "just gimme back my…

My understanding is that the German people generally are very wary of data being moved around and collected 'unnecessarily'. I think a ploy like this would only backfire on FB.

Yes, I'd second that. While there would no doubt be some sort of outrage from the users, I don't think it would be nearly as strong as suggested. Germans in general, and especially the more educated, tend to be very protective of their data protection rights. If FB attempted something like this, it would be torn to shreds by German media.

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

#100

Post by veddox »

Tomte wrote: post #3

Hamburg's data commissioner is influential because he is very active and outspoken (the previous one was even more so), but that also means that he's a bit fast and loose. His opinions and rulings are not always held up by the courts, and the other states' data commissioners (there are fifteen more, plus a federal one) quite often don't agree with him.

It just takes one loud voice to start a debate.
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