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Germany Takes Legal Steps Against Facebook
crimeandpunishment writes "Not only are Germany and Facebook not friends, they might end up opponents in a courtroom. Germany has begun legal action over privacy. A German data protection official accuses Facebook of illegally saving personal data of people who don't use the site and haven't given permission to access their private information. Germany, which has also launched an investigation into Google over its Street View mapping program, has some of the strictest privacy laws in the world."
Not when it is per individual.
It's kind of weird that Germany and Europe are now the safeguards of our privacy. On the other hand, they understand the reasons for that because of history. It seems like every other country in the world let big corporations like Google and Facebook do whatever they want.
Its been a long time since I saw such a dickwad move by an MMO company. This rivals Star Wars Galaxies NGE in terms of betrayal of the player-base by Blizzard.
On the plus side, it's likely to result in fewer "dick-waddings" in forum posts. ;)
When you think how eager the German government is to collect, filter, file and dissect data passing through the internet pipes, the whole deal feels a bit hollow and like a publicity stunt more than actual concern of their citizens private information. I'd prefer Google and Facebook doing it. I can still NOT give them my data if I so please. It's a bit harder with a Government that badgers ISPs to install sniffing bridges for something not much different from a (warrantless) wire tapping.
Or they just want to eliminate any competition in the field of selling German people's private data, dunno...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Not when it is per individual.
It's kind of weird that Germany and Europe are now the safeguards of our privacy. On the other hand, they understand the reasons for that because of history. It seems like every other country in the world let big corporations like Google and Facebook do whatever they want.
You are right...except that it wasn't the corporations that destroyed Europe twice in a century. These laws protect the privacy of individuals from corporations and other individuals, but they do nothing to protect the privacy of the individual from the government (the real problem). These laws will do nothing if nationalism surges in Europe again.
If you disagree with a company's policies, it's a good reason not to buy their product. Deciding to pirate it, on the other hand, shows just how little your principles are worth to you - less than the entertainment afforded by a computer game, apparently.
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No, they are the safeguards of OUR privacy. If you live in a degenerate country and your government care more about corporations than taxpayers, then you are screwed (you are welcomed to move to Europe... that is what I did :))
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
I agree the fine is small but I have a feeling this is going to be a bigger and bigger problem for Facebook as they branch out and expand across the globe. This is not the first time Facebook has been sued or fined over privacy issues.
http://www.thetechnologygeek.org
If they continue breaking privacy law, the fine will continue, and increase.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
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That's fairly crazy to me. If it's legal to keep and store data in paper records without a license, I see no reason why a computer should be treated differently - it's just a more efficient way of doing the same thing.
There is a big difference. You said it yourself: Efficiency is the answer. As an example, consider a criminal who looks for potential victims to blackmail. Let's say he has access to huge unrelated data sets about people who work in high government positions or have access to lots of money, who have an alcohol problem, or a money problem, or little children, or a police record of certain nasty habits.
It would take forever to correlate these data sets if they were on paper. OTOH, in a computer DB it'd take you a few lines of SQL and a few seconds to find your victims. Of course, this example is totally made up, but you might be able to map it to a more realistic scenario.
Say out loud: I'm an Aspie and I'm somewhat proud, I guess. Uh. Can I write an email in all caps instead? Hm...
The corporations bankrolled both world wars and the rise of fascism.
I mean, imagine that e-mail had been invented by Twitter, then all e-mail addresses would have been ending in "@twitter.com" and we would all rely on a private company that would have had insight into all our communications. How long would it have taken us to conclude that such a situation is absurd? Five years? Ten years? Forever?
That depends on who you mean by "us." There was once a time where email was confined to a single computer system; people realized that it would be nice to exchange email messages with users of other systems, and so they devised ways to get their computers to interoperate. These days, though, things are very different: Twitter and Facebook do not exist for the purpose of serving their users, they exist to turn ever higher profits, and interoperability would be detrimental to that. The user mindset is also different; instead of asking, "Why can't Facebook interoperate with Myspace?" they instead think, "I have friends who are not Facebook users, I will encourage them to join."
Palm trees and 8
At least according to our history textbooks, the increasing poverty after the great depression, the very failure of corporations, was a big factor in the rise of fascism. Lots of poor people willing to support anyone for empty promises.
Look at how Saddam or AlQuaida buy the support of the local population by building a few schools and hospitals. If you have the chance to get your kids pneumonia treated in a hospital, you probably wouldn't care much about civil liberties.
bickerdyke
Corporate interests fuelled both world wars. In fact the management of some huge European corporations was changed after them because they were considered complicit in the wars.
Also, it's no use to put constraints on the data collection abilities of governments if they can buy the same data (and more) from unregulated corporates (sometimes, they even get it as a free corporate gift since that's harder to trace than bribes in money)