Facebook: the Law Says You Can't Have Your Data

An anonymous reader writes "After making 22 complaints regarding Facebook's various practices, the Austrian group Europe versus Facebook stumbled upon an important tidbit: Facebook says it is not required to give you a copy of some of your personal data if it deems doing so would adversely affect its trade secrets or intellectual property. I followed up with Facebook and learned the company insists the law places 'reasonable limits' on the data that has to be provided."

Comments

Skeptical

[nonprofiteer]

I've looked into this, and I'm fairly certain that the particular piece of information that Facebook is holding back from these (800+ page) reports is a user's biometric faceprint. Claiming that the code for those prints is Facebook's intellectual property does NOT strike me as unreasonable.

I'm really sick of this trend

[GodfatherofSoul]

If I have any sort of interaction with any company besides a pure cash transaction, somehow I'm ceding all rights to my information. I get more calls on my landline from 3rd party vendors who've purchased my profile from some company than I do from people I know. I bought a house 4 years ago and my mailbox was stuffed with targeted new homeowner fliers on the first day I opened the mailbox. I filled a prescription with an online pharmacy and now I've got people calling me trying to sell me all kinds of healthcare products. I bought one political magazine prescription (more out of pity than interest) and now I get tons of fliers and ads from special interest groups. I made a few small dollar donations ($20 range) in the last couple elections and now I have politicians from all over the country both calling and writing me for donations!

We need a privacy bill of rights. Opt-in, full disclosure, and deterrent-level fines and fees for breaking the rules.

Re:I'm really sick of this trend

[Desler]

You did opt-in. Did you not read the TOS? It's your own fault for not reading it fully.

Re:I'm really sick of this trend

[ackthpt]

You did opt-in. Did you not read the TOS? It's your own fault for not reading it fully.

wut?

Facebook Terms of Use

... ikpoo foobus dorsat frobnym yinfun grostnit and all your base are belong to us, hitherto shall be volpim lepsum kruften veeblefetzer potrzebie ...

Well, dang!

Credit agencies

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget Facebook. You agree to terms of service with them. Of course no one ever reads those terms, but at least you're agreeing to a relationship with them. I don't get the credit agencies. I have no direct relationship with the credit agencies, but they collect all this data on me and it's MY responsibility to monitor and correct it if it's wrong. And if I want to check that data more than once a year, I have to pay them for MY OWN DATA.

Re:Credit agencies

[houghi]

I read the conditions of my loan to the Corleone family. That does not make it right or legit.
That is what the law is for: if there are unreasonable things happening, the law should clear things up.

Unfortunately in many countries, the law tends to side with the companies and not the general population.