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Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe

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Re: Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe

#91

Post by nibbleshifter »

hnbad wrote: post #70
DocTomoe wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook / Meta is the one big bad wolf that has been painted up by the media. Most common people don't even know what TikTok is. Also, good luck getting TikTok to even reply to some weird European Data Protection official - from a country the size of a mid-sized Chinese city...

TikTok Technology Limited, Ireland, will absolutely care if the Irish DPA sends a strongly worded letter.

Big "if". The Irish DPA is about as useful as a marzipan dildo due to being chronically underfunded.

Re: Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe

#92

Post by tannhaeuser »

What's also in violation of GDPR is sending your contacts to Whatsapp, as the app nags right and left to do, and as Whatsapp claims would be required for unrelated functionality such as seeing those freaking Whatsapp/Fb status pages of others or publish your own I guess. Phone numbers are PII, so even if you have individual consent for every number or number/name pair to pass onto third parties, which I very much doubt you have, the holder of that data in addition has a right to request data stored at Whatsapp/Fb and cancel storage and processing.

Re: Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe

#93

Post by layer8 »

alkonaut wrote: post #40
codazoda wrote: post #6

It took 5 years for this to work its way through the system. Facebook can probably just iterate a little and fight for another 5 years.

If they challenge it, surely they still pay the fines retroactively if they lose? And given their size and how the fines are structured, couldn't it be very expensive to keep this in courts when it looks like a losing case on paper?

The may believe it’s worth it vs. the loss of ad income.

Re: Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe

#94

Post by wpietri »

lzaaz wrote: post #9

If they can't show good ads in Europe, I assume that they will lose money and eventually have to close down here. I think that users have a right to know what happens to their data. But this is not a consent or information screen, this is the end of it. Europe tells us they do this for our own good, so we can own our data, but then they make it illegal for us to exchange our data for someone's service. Basically they…

> it is the opposite of freedom

Your particular concept of freedom doesn't account for asymmetries in information and power. The average person does not have the time or knowledge to truly understand the implicit bargain that goes with using Facebook. Partly because Facebook is very aggressive in keeping users in the dark. But even if Facebook were totally open about everything, people just don't have the time to independently investigate every company they do business with.

What your high-theory freedom means in practice for the average person is the freedom to be exploited. That's how it went in the early 1900s before we had labor laws and anti-trust laws. Did hundreds of millions of workers lose the freedom to work overtime for free? Undoubtedly. Are they missing it? Generally not.

Re: Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe

#95

Post by riskable »

RajT88 wrote: post #46
Bilal_io wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope Facebook doesn't survive another 5. But I won't hold my breath. Still amusing just a few years ago Facebook was described as a world government due to the influence they had. Maybe they still have that, but I've just detached myself from it to see it.

Facebook will still be around in 5 years. The question is whether it will be relevant. People make the comparison to MySpace, because it's the most comparable service - Facebook de-throned it as the king of social media. And incidentally, MySpace is still around. They survived the de-throning by pivoting, which is inevitably what Facebook will do. I think we've seen the groundwork for it already.

Facebook has already seen the writing on the wall and has been pivoting to VR. Probably not the best pivot but it is what it is.

They clearly want to be the Apple/iPhone of VR. The part that confuses me is that they can't seem to decide whether or not to make consumer VR stuff or business VR/AR stuff. They're completely different markets.

Consumers want games and apps/experiences that are fun and/or exciting (even if they're not games). Businesses want specialized apps and equipment that's suited to their industry/use cases. If you're going to make business-focused hardware like the Quest Pro you're not going to be making the highly specialized software that businesses want because that would be a waste of your time (too niche). So it would behoove Facebook to sell something like the Quest Pro with a significant markup (the "business tax" like with all things "enterprisey") instead of at or near cost like they're currently doing.

The thing that baffles me the most is how much friction they've artificially introduced in order to develop for the Oculus platform(s). Firstly, you need a Facebook account to gain access to their developer portal. This makes zero sense considering that Facebook is primarily something meant for personal use. It also means you have to give your employer your Facebook account which is... Bad. To say the least!

(Aside: You might be thinking, "just make a separate Facebook account for work" but that's actually a violation of Facebook's TOS!)

Secondly, there's ZERO information about developing custom hardware for the Oculus platform in their developer portal. In their forums/community pages there's loads of people asking questions about how to do this and no answers from Oculus/Facebook staff. Nothing!

The ability to integrate custom input devices would be a HUGE boon to business-specific solutions/use cases. Simple example: Imagine walking around a store doing inventory while wearing an AR headset... It automatically identifies the products on the shelves and estimates their counts for you but how do you enter in the real count? Hold a controller in your hand and use a virtual keyboard? That would be the peak of inefficiency.

Sure, you can pair a Bluetooth keyboard/numpad to the Oculus (I think) but a customized input device that could say, weigh some bananas and measure the temperature, light/color, sound, and levels of ethene gas would be sooooo much better! It wouldn't be too difficult to make either except for the fact that Facebook has made it impossible.

Re: Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe

#96

Post by alt227 »

lzaaz wrote: post #43
martin_a wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just show unpersonalized ads then. That's all.

That's precisely what I'm saying. I am an adult, and if I want to pay for a service with MY data, I should be able to consent to that. I can't, so this regulation doesn't respect me and my rights.

I think you misunderstood this. They are not being forced against showing personalised ads, they are being forced to give you an active choice. You are still welcome to choose to let them track you.

Re: Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe

#97

Post by riskable »

criddell wrote: post #27
rvz wrote: post #14

Good. So the invasive tracking that TikTok and every other social network does in Europe should also be illegal as well then? If not, then is it's only a matter of time and eventual enforcement and outlawing this behaviour for everyone. Should not be just Meta; we need to go further and cover all social networks.

Does TikTok follow you around the web to a similar extent as Facebook? AFAIK, the regulation doesn’t cover only Meta. If forcing acceptance of tracking to use the service is illegal for Meta to do, then it’s also illegal for TikTok.

> Does TikTok follow you around the web to a similar extent as Facebook?

Yes, the TikTok pixel: https://ads.tiktok.com/help/article?aid=9663

Not as prevalent as Facebook's Like icons but it's well on its way.

Re: Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe

#98

Post by p0pcult »

ls15 wrote: post #90
wackget wrote: post #84

> The EU decision will not have direct consequences for users, unfortunately, as it can be appealed to. Such an appeal would lead to a lengthy judicial process. So companies can flout the law for years, making massive profits, and continue to do so for as long as they can string along an appeal process? Seems like a pretty nice loophole.

Certain companies can

Would it wreck the legal framework to institute a concept wherein you can appeal, but if, on appeal, the lower court ruling holds, the punishment/fine is retroactive to the date of the lower court ruling?

I.e., make it so that there is no free pass to continuing presumptively illegal activity.

Re: Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe

#99

Post by coder543 »

gbil wrote: post #60
dijit wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pure nostalgia seeing that Instagram app icon I really miss the skeumophic design of the iOS ecosystem from the early-to-mid 2010's. It felt so premium, especially with the retina display which was miles ahead of basically everything else (especially desktops and laptops of the era).

I had to check the retina remark as my Sony Z5 premium came in mind with the 800+ppi but even before that in 2013 I had z Sony Z1 with 440ppi and I'm pretty sure other manufacturers had high dpi screens since 2010 eg. sharp's ISO3 . So "miles ahead" is not true plus I believe iphones had other manufacturing tricks that helped in the "retina" marketing hype, I believe touch/display elements been closer together etc. N…

Why are you comparing phones from 2015 and 2013 to Apple marketing from 2010? The competition absolutely did catch up eventually. And if the Sharp ISO3 is the best example you can come up with from 2010, then I disagree with your claim entirely. A single, low volume halo device is not comparable to a mainstream device that sold in the millions.

The 2010 Galaxy S had a 233 PPI display compared to the 326 PPI that Apple marketed as "Retina". The 2011 Galaxy II actually regressed slightly to a 217 PPI display. These were both PenTile displays, so their effective PPI was definitely noticeably lower than the paper specs would suggest.

Even in 2012 with the Galaxy III, Samsung's mainstream flagship reached 306 PPI, which is still less than 326, but it would be roughly comparable if not for the compromised PenTile subpixel arrangement that means it didn't even have 306 PPI of clarity, nowhere near as good as a 306 PPI traditional LCD in terms of clarity.

By 2013 with the Galaxy S4, Samsung finally exceeded 326PPI with their 441 PPI display... on paper, but this was still a SAMOLED screen with a PenTile arrangement, but it was probably comparable with the 326 PPI of the iPhone 4.

The 2013 HTC One (M7) actually did have a 468 PPI Super LCD screen, which was impressively sharp, but still years later than the iPhone 4.

It took several years for the mainstream competition to catch up to Apple's retina displays. Apple was miles ahead of everything else. And I say this as someone who was an Android user until the iPhone X! I was not an iPhone user, but I could easily see how much better the pixel density was on iPhone 4 and for several years after that. As with most things, there are diminishing returns, and having a 20,000 PPI display next to a 500 PPI display is going to be completely unnoticeable. 326 "real" PPI is an excellent level of clarity, and I don't see much (if any) advantage to going past the ~450 PenTile PPI (whatever that works out to in real PPI) that we have on a lot of mainstream smartphones today.

Maybe you fell for the marketing hype of PenTile displays that were claiming higher PPIs than they actually had?

Re: Facebook tracking is illegal in Europe

#100

Post by seanw444 »

wackget wrote: post #84

> The EU decision will not have direct consequences for users, unfortunately, as it can be appealed to. Such an appeal would lead to a lengthy judicial process. So companies can flout the law for years, making massive profits, and continue to do so for as long as they can string along an appeal process? Seems like a pretty nice loophole.

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