Hamburg To Fine Facebook Over Facial Recognition Feature

An anonymous reader writes "Johannes Caspar, data protection commissioner for the German state of Hamburg, today declared he will soon fine Facebook over its use of biometric facial recognition technology. He said 'further negotiations are pointless' because the company had ignored a deadline he set for it to remove the feature. German authorities could fine Facebook up to €300,000 ($420,000)."

Comments

Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[AdmiralXyz]

No problem, just start shaking down the Americans.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Anonymous Coward]

I could do without ym face being recognized as well.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol yeah Greek debt is the problem when Germany has more than three times the debt of Greece.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Germany actually has industry. It's like how if a homeless bum owes $1000, he's never going to pay it, whereas an upper-middle-class guy with a job can owe $300,000 on a mortgage and another $20,000 on a car and still have a future ahead of him.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans are too endepted to shake down :-(

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course typical social euro mentality....

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Mashiki]

So what will you whine about when Canada does the same thing? The privacy commissioner launched a similar investigation into this as well, though our fine could be in the several million dollar range.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[ThatsMyNick]

Not enough cash from the high taxes? No problem, just start shaking down the Americans.
 
I am sure someone can come up with something better.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Anonymous Coward]

That works fine until this upper-middle-class guy's job is shipped over to some third-world shithole nation where the work is performed at a small fraction of the cost by somebody with an even smaller fraction of the skill doing a very horrible job at it. Now the upper-middle-class guy is $300,000 in debt and jobless. Since he was a manager for a few years, he no longer has any technical skills, and there are no management jobs available, so he's shit out of luck. Even if he took that job at Burger King, it'd still take him over 20 years to pay down that debt, and that's without spending money on anything else, and without taking into account the interest! Furthermore, thanks to "Free Trade" and their outsourcing blunder, the company he used to work for will go under in a few months, so he has no chance of ever going back there. He can't even start up his own business, because nobody is willing to lend him any more money given his current $300,000 debt load. Even though he's making absolutely no income, and the interest on his debt grows daily, he still needs to provide food and shelter for his family. He can't sell his house, because nobody else is financially sound enough to purchase it. Even worse, he can't sell his car because he lives in the suburbs where there is absolutely no public transit and the only way to get the basic necessities of life is to drive 20 km into the city. Welcome to America, circa 2011.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Mashiki]

Obviously. Taxes are indeed high, though as long as you keep buying our resources, we won't have any shortage of money.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Anonymous Coward]

So what will you whine about when Canada does the same thing? The privacy commissioner launched a similar investigation into this as well, though our fine could be in the several million dollar range.

Don't worry, your southern neighbour will invade you in the near future.
Fallout wasn't so off the mark it seems (American annexes Canada to keep the peace).

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Anonymous Coward]

That works fine until this upper-middle-class guy's job is shipped over to some third-world shithole nation where the work is performed at a small fraction of the cost by somebody with an even smaller fraction of the skill doing a very horrible job at it.

That's more of an American thing, sell out your countrymen - and to a degree, your customers - for higher profits. 'Made in the USA' used to a hallmark of quality, it's now been replaced with 'Designed in the USA. Made in China.'

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Anonymous Coward]

not enough domestic oil left at a price to keep the 'natives' happy no problem lets just invade and takesome one else.
Besides Greece and Italy can allways borrow off the Chinese it's not like any one else is borrowing that money.
 

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Anonymous Coward]

No problem, just start shaking down the Americans.

Yeah, they have plenty of cash

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. Germany figured out how to have a first-world country that can still make things. They're still #2 for exports worldwide. The USA, on the other hand, is going to get worse before it starts to get better.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. Mind your own business.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Want to try spelling that word again, skip?

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why you rent a house, lease a car, and learn chinese. $300 on rosetta-stone and you can live like a king as a cab driver in shanghai!

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[SteveTheNewbie]

They've already tried that two or three times and failed miserably at it.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[BitterOak]

I could do without ym face being recognized as well.

And I could do without German judges deciding how an American based social networking site should be run.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[realityimpaired]

If they want to do business in Germany, they comply with German law. Not sure what's so difficult to understand on that point... wouldn't be the first time Facebook has had to adjust its practices to stay on the friendly side of the law. Actually, it wouldn't be the first time they've had to adjust their practices to comply with German law, at that. The reason you can hide your profile from search, among other privacy features you've been granted, are because of the orders of the German and Canadian privacy commissions....

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[x kepa x]

Have you ever wondered why can someone get paid less and do OK with it? This in my opinion is the true turning point, WE as a whole should be thinking as one. Forget the borders and nations and whatever. WE need to figure it out. Hell, if half of Africa isn't hospitable for harboring so many humans, maybe the science should make forward for making it hospitable. WE want to go to Mars? If WE are thinking WE can make that place livable, maybe WE should start here on Earth first? Is it normal for anyone to think that the current time period (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_time_periods) we live in is the end of the list ultimate one? Frak that. I'm sure change is coming and for me rather then turning to a God I'm starting to believe the 2012 predictions. NOT the paranoid ones, but the original ones: Beginning of the new age. Still I'm not even sure I can last a year to wait for it. I'll do my best, but shit is dire. WE seriously need an intervention from the higher power (be that God or Alien - I'm picking Aliens on this one). In the end just think about this for a moment: money is a universal currency and is equivalent by the power (be it brain or labor) a person gives. If that translates to an UNIVERSAL currency, if a job in America and an job in India is paid the same... would it matter? Of course not.. It's US ... the HUMANS that made it that way. Borders make us separated... Borders make us get that living somewhere else is a good idea... This is a problem in it's root. WE need to UNITE. - imagine this: Aliens come to Earth. That shit is kinda new to us, but whatever, TV style. 1: They lend in America - "Howdy ho" guns pointed at them, because American are generally scared of everything going on in the World. 2: They lend in Serbia (that's where I'm from) - "De ste rodjaci" - (translated: "Welcome cousins" - lousy translation) hugs all over, thinking "Get us out of this mess, we are now the link to the higher power"... "Jackpot" would say the most. But still the reaction is the CURRENT one. Thinking "We'll stick it to the World, we got our diplomat and his on OUR side, not anyone else". Still thinking about the difference between nations and countries. 3: Anything goes... A lot of envy I sense in everyone's eyes, a lot of WTF going on. Bottom line... WE are still divided. WE still live in multi-national world. The problems WE are having right now are pathetic at least. And still after all those thoughts, it comes back to this: Do your job better then others and live good OR do your scams better then others and live good. PS. I'm veeeeeery drunk. Peace and love, whoever you are. PSS. How do I make the (Enter/Break/Return) - also known as next paragraph here? Blah. block of text. TL;DR. I get it. :*

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Mashiki]

No. We never levied fines. We gave ultimatums, including blocking and seizing their assets in Canada, and the changes went in.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[metrix007]

How does Facebook do business in Germany? Simply because Germans use it is not enough.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because people are different, people are individual, but by all means let's force everyone to think and act alike, great idea you totalitarian dickhead.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[mosb1000]

This was addressed in the Steve Jobs biography. When asked why he didn't build factories in the US by Obama, he replied that even if he could get all the permits and stuff sorted out, he wouldn't be able to find 30 thousand or so engineers he'd need to keep the thing running.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Anonymous Coward]

he wouldn't be able to find 30 thousand or so engineers he'd need to keep the thing running.

Gees you really swallow whatever he gives you, surely it's not a CEO trying to spin some bullshit to justify his company's enormous profits thanks to offshoring, nah CEOs are way too honest for that. What makes you think they need 30,000 engineers? And even if they did you're saying America isn't capable of educating that many engineers? The US has around 70,000 engineering graduates per year (look it up). How do you think Germany (with its much lower population) manages its enormous manufacturing operations?

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[mosb1000]

He's not talking about engineers with 4 year degrees, he's talking about people with the technical training to operate and maintain factory equipment. You don't get that kind of training in college.

You're advocating essentially a "if you build it they will come" mentality. While it may work, it's not something a lot of people would bebt tens of billions of dollars on. That said, Apple could undertake the effort of training people themselves. I suspect they'd rather get their products made as soon as possible, however.

Also, the US has higher industrial output than germany, by a significant margian. It was only recently overtaken by Cina. The problem is that it's mostly in airplanes and chemicals and cars. Not computers. And there are now significant barriers to entry for building new factories. To the extent that it rarely happens anymore.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Anonymous Coward]

uh - just for the record.

lehman brothers *a us bank* started this whole crisis in 2008.

goldman-sachs *a us bank again* helped greece to mask their debt.

so - pay up for causing all this trouble.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course typical social euro mentality....

You say that like its a bad thing. :)

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Lisias]

You are simply ignoring the simple fact that Americans are still buying Apple products, nevertheless your arguments.

If the Americans were so concerned with their jobs, they would agree to pay a bit more for Made In USA products.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Getting into debt has a risk attached to it. You played, you lost.
Next time don't take debt as a certainty or as the single way of living a life.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Chrisq]

Lol yeah Greek debt is the problem when Germany has more than three times the debt of Greece.

I think that's a bit like saying to your bank manager "why worry about my $5,000 loan when Bill gates has loans many times that size.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[L4t3r4lu5]

I have friends who have exactly this plan in mind. One is currently a secondary level science teacher, the other an Eastern Bloc / Asia specialist for a high-class tourism company. They plan on moving to China to teach English. You get paid UK-level wages, but pay China prices for everything. You're effectively a local millionaire.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[makomk]

He's not talking about engineers with 4 year degrees, he's talking about people with the technical training to operate and maintain factory equipment. You don't get that kind of training in college.

You mean the sort of training that companies used to pay for their employees to get, back when America and other Western countries were less fucked?

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[flyneye]

Of course there's a flip side to this. Facebook lawyers could just say " You can want money in one hand and shit in the other hand, then see which hand fills up first. Go ahead and BLOCK FACEBOOK if you don't like it, then we'll see how long it takes your massive crowd of users to make your life bitter hell."

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not talking about engineers with 4 year degrees, he's talking about people with the technical training to operate and maintain factory equipment. You don't get that kind of training in college.

Not in America you don't, that's part of the problem.

You're advocating essentially a "if you build it they will come" mentality.

Of course, you think people are going to train for jobs in factories that don't exist on the hope that once they are trained someone will build factories for them to work in?

While it may work, it's not something a lot of people would bebt tens of billions of dollars on.

Actually it's exactly the kind of thing people would bet tens of billions of dollars on, because that's how it works, that's certainly how the industry thrives in Germany.

That said, Apple could undertake the effort of training people themselves.

And that's what they should do, but of course they get higher profit margins by not doing it, sure they are selling out their country, but hey it's higher profits.

I suspect they'd rather get their products made as soon as possible, however.

Rather as cheaply as possible.

Also, the US has higher industrial output than germany, by a significant margian. It was only recently overtaken by Cina.

No, no they don't. Germany is the one recently knocked off the top by China, the US is in 3rd place.
1 People's Republic of China $1,581,000,000,000
2 Germany $1,337,000,000,000
3 United States $1,289,000,000,000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_exports

And there are now significant barriers to entry for building new factories. To the extent that it rarely happens anymore.

No there aren't, it's just that it's cheaper to offshore that manufacturing so that's what the shareholders prefer.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[exomondo]

You are simply ignoring the simple fact that Americans are still buying Apple products, nevertheless your arguments.

I don't think he's ignoring that, Americans are just buying things made by the chinese.

If the Americans were so concerned with their jobs, they would agree to pay a bit more for Made In USA products.

Except that most things aren't 'Made in USA' anymore not because of consumer price choice but because making them offshore provides the company with better profit margins, just look at the enormous profit margins on Apple gear, they own ~7% of the PC market yet make ~35% of the profit, just google it. They also make the lion's share of the profit in the smartphone market despite having a comparatively small marketshare.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[tehcyder]

This was addressed in the Steve Jobs biography. When asked why he didn't build factories in the US by Obama, he replied that even if he could get all the permits and stuff sorted out, he wouldn't be able to find 30 thousand or so engineers he'd need to keep the thing running.

Yeah, maybe if your definition of engineer is "someone who assembles an iToy".

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[tehcyder]

And there are now significant barriers to entry for building new factories.

And, oh let me guess, it's all the government's fault?

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[nosferatu1001]

1) Office in Hamburg
2) Work with German advertisers

THats two reasons right there.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[tehcyder]

You are simply ignoring the simple fact that Americans are still buying Apple products, nevertheless your arguments.

If the Americans were so concerned with their jobs, they would agree to pay a bit more for Made In USA products.

But Americans don't get the choice between "made in China" and "made in the USA" iPhones. The problem is that companies have outsourced their manufacturing to China almost wholesale, there isn't anything much a consumer can do about that.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[tehcyder]

I have friends who have exactly this plan in mind. One is currently a secondary level science teacher, the other an Eastern Bloc / Asia specialist for a high-class tourism company. They plan on moving to China to teach English. You get paid UK-level wages, but pay China prices for everything. You're effectively a local millionaire.

The downside being that you have to live in China.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[tehcyder]

PSS. How do I make the (Enter/Break/Return) - also known as next paragraph here?

Use the P (for paragraph) tag?

Is this a trick question?

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[L4t3r4lu5]

They fully understand that. They're more interested in having their government openly opposed to personal liberty instead of clandestinely eroding freedoms under flimsy and transparently vacuous premises, and having a very comfortable life of reasonable luxury.

This is why I'm not joining them, as enticing an idea as it is.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[mosb1000]

There are lots of culprits. New development projects are often tied up in litigation for a period of time as local communities oppose them for various reasons. Existing buildings can be difficult to demolish because of historic structures. Comprehensive environmental impact reports must be prepared and show no negative impact or else litigation can completely torpedo the project (and honestly, it's pretty damn hard to build anything with absolutely no environmental impact, you're essentially limited to replacing and upgrading existing facilities). On top of that, getting necessary permits takes time, which delays projects and costs money.

Obviously, if you're in the tech sector, you can't afford to wait years to get these legal considerations worked out.

In China, the government gets on board and promotes new projects. They don't care about negative environmental impacts, destroying historic structures, or what kind of impact a development will have on the local community. While their approach is far from perfect, you have to admit that the US approach does a lot to stifle new development.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[mosb1000]

Perhaps the US could overcome this if there were some alternative protocol businesses could use to avoid litigation as long as certain standards for environmental/community impact were met and independently reviewed by a government body in a timely fashion. But I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[mosb1000]

You're listing exports, I'm talking about actual production.

The industrial sector in the US produces 3.2 trillion dollars worth of goods, while in china it's 2.8 (China comes out ahead 4.7 - 3.2 when you're measuring by Purchasing Power Parity rather than a straight currency conversion). Germany does not even produce 1 trillion (your numbers include "re-exports").

Re:Not enough cash to bail out Greece and Italy?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're listing exports, I'm talking about actual production.

The industrial sector in the US produces 3.2 trillion dollars worth of goods, while in china it's 2.8 (China comes out ahead 4.7 - 3.2 when you're measuring by Purchasing Power Parity rather than a straight currency conversion). Germany does not even produce 1 trillion (your numbers include "re-exports").

But that's effectively a meaningless comparison because when you compare that to their populations that's accurate in terms of sustainability, the US population is around 310million, whereas the the German population is around 81million. So of course the local industry differential is matched with the population differential, the difference is that Germany has enormous exports for its population, the US has a comparatively tiny amount of exports for its population even though both countries match on population to local industry ratio.

Europe

[arunce]

Most european countries can fine facebook if they want.

States regulating Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

It's silly for one state/province/city/school board to try to regulate the activites of an international website.
The situation is different from, say, a company actually setting up a location or conducting physical sales somewhere.
How is a site even to know whether or not it's sending packets to a particular locale?
If it's so intolerable to Hamburg for Facebook to "do business there", they can always just block Facebook.

Re:States regulating Internet

[nschubach]

This happens a lot... and it can get into major overhead. The place I used to work had to go through special hoops to get a workplace training system with questions and answers approved by the German Works Council because we collected a worker ID and could track what answers they selected for questions. We were using it to track what questions were missed the most, but being able to find out what employee answered incorrectly was a concern.

There was also a situation in dealing with Quebec and ensuring that French was listed before English because they have some law that felt it important to violate the alphabetical sorting of language text.

Re:States regulating Internet

[The Askylist]

I remember having to modify some production reports for use in Germany so that individual operators could not be identified. Not a big deal to do, but it made me wonder what sort of law would allow unproductive workers to hide behind data protection...

Re:States regulating Internet

[BitterOak]

Mod parent up! You're absolutely right. Facebook is an American-based company, and German citizens have to voluntarily visit facebook.com, taking them to the American site, then set up an account, and then supply them with information. That American company shouldn't then be hauled into a German court and ordered to restructure it's website to meet German standards. China doesn't like Facebook's model, so they block the website; they don't try to dictate how Facebook should run its business.

Re:States regulating Internet

[boristhespider]

Facebook have an office in Hamburg.

Re:States regulating Internet

[fyngyrz]

Facebook have an office in Hamburg.

A mistake that can be easily corrected. :o)

Re:States regulating Internet

[boristhespider]

Yes, certainly. Facebook could pull their physical presence from Hamburg (though that would include any servers etc.), so long as other German states or the Federal Government don't decide to do the same. And if they do Facebook can simply pull their physical presence from Germany entirely and be fine. For whatever reason, Facebook have chosen to have a physical office in Hamburg, so I imagine they won't be too keen doing that (especially not for the measly sum of $400k), but it would be a clean solution...

Re:States regulating Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

Physical presence doesn't really matter. If you derive revenue from a country, that revenue can be garnished. At the extreme, a country can tell your customers, suppliers and/or advertisers "you can either do business with them or you can do business here; but not both."

Re:States regulating Internet

[boristhespider]

All true. Someone else commented on a thread below that Germany (or the separate states) could target revenue streams from German businesses paying Facebook for adverts, for instance. I'd guess physical presence does make it a lot easier for you to be pulled into court, and it's noteworthy that the case is being called in Hamburg, where Facebook have their physical presence, but yes, you're right.

Re:States regulating Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

IMHO if you do business somewhere you have to comply with local laws, the other way around all US companies could outsource their headquarters to some tax heaven, and then claim they have no liability to pay taxes, etc... I seriously doubt any government would tolerate that, so some conclusions are pretty straightforward...

Re:States regulating Internet

[jc42]

Facebook is an American-based company, and German citizens have to voluntarily visit facebook.com, taking them to the American site, then set up an account, and then supply them with information.

Or they can, y'know, go to facebook.de, the version that comes up on your screen auf Deutsch ;-)

Actually, when I tried that URL in a firefox window, it bounced me to de-de.facebook.com, and nothing I tried could convince it otherwise. So I fired up one of the other dozen browsers that I have on this Mac, gave it facebook.de, and it's now showing the registration page - in German. It's also telling me "JavaScript ist in deinem Browser deaktiviert", which is correct for that browser.

So you were mostly wrong. Anyone want to test whether Germans using firefox will be redirected to that bizarre de-de.facebook.com site that's in English? I suppose I could indirect through a German anonymizer, but that seems rather a lot of work for just a /. discussion. And it might be doing that in my FF window because I am in fact logged into facebook via FF.

Re:States regulating Internet

[davester666]

I'm surprised you didn't get reports of Quebec users smashing their monitors because the label for selecting the French language wasn't just first, but also twice as large as any other label.

Re:States regulating Internet

[risom]

In comparison it does not seem to matter: Have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity - according to the first diagram the productivity in the US and Germany is quite comparable despite the much stricter data protection laws.

These privacy laws define constitutional rights in Germany, so the interests of the corporations to maximize profit are lower ranked (as they are not on constitutional level).

Re:States regulating Internet

[N1AK]

China blocks sites that don't do what it wants so that sites that do what they want get the use. Facebook/Google etc all had the choice of caving and giving the Chinese government what they want or getting out of the market. That cannot possibly be taken as being better than what Hamburg has done here. Facebook has multiple options which would be easy to implement like disable all accounts in Hamburg, remove them from the recognition completely. As long as Facebook has offices in Germany, offers German language functionality, partners with German businesses for advertising etc it is naive at best to pretend they can act like German law should have no jurisdiction.

Re:States regulating Internet

[ShakaUVM]

>>These privacy laws define constitutional rights in Germany, so the interests of the corporations to maximize profit are lower ranked (as they are not on constitutional level).

To be fair, privacy is a constitutional right in America, too, even though it's not, you know, actually written down in the Constitution.

Contrary to popular opinion, this right was not invented for Roe vs Wade.

Re:States regulating Internet

[V for Vendetta]

So, you're saying that Mercedes, BMW etc. don't need to built cars that comply with U.S. regulations in order to sell them in the U.S.A.? I very much doubt that.

You do business somewhere - you adhere to the regulations there.

In Germany those lobbyists and politicians that don't understand/like the internet, always argue (and that has become a ridiculed meme amongst nerds meanwhile) "Das Internet darf kein rechtsfreier Raum sein" ("The internet shouldn't allowed to be a lawless space"). To which those in the known can only shake their heads in disbelief and answer "We're not aware of any law where the internet is exempt from ....".

Re:States regulating Internet

[tehcyder]

If it's so intolerable to Hamburg for Facebook to "do business there", they can always just block Facebook.

>> buys ticket for Hamburg

Re:States regulating Internet

[tehcyder]

This happens a lot... and it can get into major overhead. The place I used to work had to go through special hoops to get a workplace training system with questions and answers approved by the German Works Council because we collected a worker ID and could track what answers they selected for questions. We were using it to track what questions were missed the most, but being able to find out what employee answered incorrectly was a concern.

There was also a situation in dealing with Quebec and ensuring that French was listed before English because they have some law that felt it important to violate the alphabetical sorting of language text.

So really, the whole world should just have exactly the same laws as the US?

Re:States regulating Internet

[tehcyder]

I remember having to modify some production reports for use in Germany so that individual operators could not be identified. Not a big deal to do, but it made me wonder what sort of law would allow unproductive workers to hide behind data protection...

That would be the sort of law that gives workers protection at the expense of big corporations being able to do what they want. You would probably call it socialism, the rest of us would say it was a partial attempt to redress the power balance between employer and emloyee, which is hugely slanted in favour of the employer in a capitalist economy.

Re:States regulating Internet

[tehcyder]

Facebook have an office in Hamburg.

A mistake that can be easily corrected. :o)

And of course you know it was a mistake, because you are one of the executives at Facebook and are aware of their business plans and all the legal advice they have taken?

Re:States regulating Internet

[tehcyder]

China blocks sites that don't do what it wants so that sites that do what they want get the use. Facebook/Google etc all had the choice of caving and giving the Chinese government what they want or getting out of the market. That cannot possibly be taken as being better than what Hamburg has done here. Facebook has multiple options which would be easy to implement like disable all accounts in Hamburg, remove them from the recognition completely. As long as Facebook has offices in Germany, offers German language functionality, partners with German businesses for advertising etc it is naive at best to pretend they can act like German law should have no jurisdiction.

I doubt that Facebook naively believe any such thing, it's just the rabid right wing free market cheerleaders on places like slashdot that still seem to think the US are exempt from other countries' laws.

Re:States regulating Internet

[nschubach]

I suppose if that's the way you like to read it.

Re:States regulating Internet

[omnichad]

Are you sure that wasn't just because you already had American Facebook cookies in the browser you tried first?

Re:States regulating Internet

[omnichad]

For example, if you actually login to facebook.de in your other browser, and then close and go back to facebook.com, maybe it redirects you to en-us.facebook.de

$420K?

[Joe Decker]

Facebook's even going to notice that?

Re:$420K?

[Dunbal]

They would if it was PER OFFENSE.

Re:$420K?

[ColdWetDog]

Facebook's even going to notice that?

Ok, using that line of reasoning, I'm going to fine Facebook for $400,000. Hand it over Zuckerberg, it's a bargain.

Re:$420K?

[steelfood]

They'll be scratching their heads over why they hired a new engineer and why he never showed up for work.

Re:$420K?

[ackthpt]

Facebook's even going to notice that?

Ok, using that line of reasoning, I'm going to fine Facebook for $400,000. Hand it over Zuckerberg, it's a bargain.

He'll probably ask you to break a $500,000 bill.

Which he pulled out of petty cash.

Re:$420K?

[Surt]

Just send them an invoice. They've grown so fast their internal cost controls won't have a chance of catching you.

Re:$420K?

[Anonymous Coward]

i dont really like the way facebook works now but tell the krauts to go fuck themselfs

Re:$420K?

[tehcyder]

Just send them an invoice. They've grown so fast their internal cost controls won't have a chance of catching you.

Probably truer than most people would realise, although I wouldn't go as high as $400K on a first try..

Re:$420K?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you know, they can issue Interpol arrest warrant for Mark Zuckerberg if its not paid

Re:$420K?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its still PROFILING. DoD/law enforecement thinks just because FB is PRIVATE COMPANY that they are EXEMPT from PRIVACY LAWS that the GOVT has in place, even to protect VETS. They cant publicly go after PRIVATE firms or HACK PRIVATE COMPANIES, so they drop subpoeneas on them 'LIKE ITS HOT matter of national security'. That is the ONLY excuse they have to violate ALL of us in a blanket.

ONE TERRORIST does NOT spoil the bunch. 1920 COMM ACT still stands and last I knew that meant ALL COMMUNICATIONS between individuals on COMMERCIAL LINES are PRIVATE. SUCH PRIVACY MUST BE MAINTAINED AT ALL COSTS and (yes, even NSA) INTERCEPTS ARE STILL DECLARED UNLAWFUL, regardless of nature.
NSA/CIA is just throwing weight around...google earth the Ft.Meade NSA building if you dont believe me.....MICKEY MOUSE WHITE EARS on top(of course you cant photo them...thats the GOVT INTERCEPT STATION on COMMERCIAL LINES).

Ignorant question ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse my ignorance, but isn't Facebook an american corp?
Why are they somehow held to the law of a different country. More to the point who is going enforce the German law?
Shut down the 'German headquarters' or branch if there is one and just go on with life? Why is the a problem, Is there some kind of treaty that will force them
to pay the fine in the U.S.?

I'm not being a wise cracker. Can someone answer these questions? I'd like to know.

Re:Ignorant question ?

[PhilHibbs]

If they want to do business only in America, then they can ignore the laws of the rest of the world.

Re:Ignorant question ?

[SerpentMage]

You are right... The problem is that Facebook might want to do business with an EU company. At that point things become funny...

Re:Ignorant question ?

[Frosty Piss]

If they want to do business only in America, then they can ignore the laws of the rest of the world.

Are they doing business in Germany?

Re:Ignorant question ?

[Anonymous Coward]

but what constitutes 'doing business' ... is Germany actually going to filter out Facebook without massive backlash from it's own people? I mean Facebook not going to stop accepting or advertising too people who live in Germany.If they have no physical presence in Germany so where exactly to the Germans get the idea they should be subject to German law?

Are Chinese web sites subject to German Copywrite laws? Are American websites subject to Iranian decency laws?

Re:Ignorant question ?

[QuasiSteve]

Facebook.de / German-language facebook / office in the city of.. Hamburg, Germany.
( http://www.facebook.com/careers/department.php?dept=hamburg )

So... Yes.

Re:Ignorant question ?

[ThatsMyNick]

More to the point who is going enforce the German law?

As I posted elsewhere, the court can order German ISPs to block facebook.

Re:Ignorant question ?

[Anonymous Coward]

a physical office is doing business you blithering idiot.

Hamburg, Germany
Our German office is located in beautiful downtown Hamburg, surrounded by splendid shopping opportunities we are also just few minutes walk from the vibrant harbor area and the most infamous part of town - St. Pauli!
Open Positions
Account Management (1)

        Account Manager (Hamburg)

Ads Marketing (1)

        Head of Brand & Agency Marketing (Hamburg)

Corporate Communications (1)

        Head of Policy (Germany)

Monetization (1)

        Senior Strategist, Global Customer Marketing (Hamburg)

Sales International (3)

        Client Partner (Hamburg)
        International Client Partner (Hamburg)
        Regional Director Europe (Germany & Nordics)

Re:Ignorant question ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to miss the point. Listen up, moron. The question is, why bother with the German physical presence. The internet is connected everywhere. It just doesn't make sense to me why they want the German physical presence.

Re:Ignorant question ?

[psiclops]

well obviously they do.

unless someone got really high and started throwing darts a map then opened up offices wherever the darts landed. then forgot all about it.

Re:Ignorant question ?

[Chrisq]

Way to miss the point. Listen up, moron. The question is, why bother with the German physical presence. The internet is connected everywhere. It just doesn't make sense to me why they want the German physical presence.

Just maybe they don't want to offer Facebook to all the world outside the USA without any advertising revenue. Maybe they want to advertise German companies to German users of facebook

Re:Ignorant question ?

[Chrisq]

More to the point who is going enforce the German law?

As I posted elsewhere, the court can order German ISPs to block facebook.

Or just send the bailifs round to Facebooks office in Hamburg

Re:Ignorant question ?

[gsslay]

Well fortunately you are not in the business of being a multi-national corp. So it doesn't need to make sense to you.

Facebook don't allow German people accounts simply to be nice and have a global presence. They do it to make money from companies who want to advertise to those users. If you want to make money in a country, particularly one with a big economy like Germany, it's a whole lot easier if you have a registered company in that country. That usually means employing people and having an office.

Once you want to make money in a country, you will usually find that the country itself has some very definite laws you have to follow before they will allow that to happen. It rarely works to say "We're American, just give us the cash and don't bother us with your quaint laws and customs."

Re:Ignorant question ?

[tehcyder]

Exactly, it's no use to Facebook having all their German/EU members just go through Facebook.com in the US.

US advertisers arent't going to pay to advertise Californian pickup truck deals or cheap Kentucky real estate to Belgians, and the same the other way round.

So they have decided to have a physical European presence, sell German language advertising and use a German Facebook.de web address and so on. At that point, they can't pretend they only operate in the US.

lol

[DarkofPeace]

In other news, Facebook tells Hamburg where they can stick it and Casper disappears under mysterious circumstances.

Re:lol

[PhilHibbs]

Are you seriously suggesting that they abduct or murder foreign government officials? Or even that they just ignore the laws of countries that they do business in?

Re:lol

[DarkofPeace]

not at all. Just being funny at the arrogance of a semi-local politician trying to exert power over this "internet thing".

Re:lol

[Anonymous Coward]

It has nothing to do with this "internet thing."

It has to do with people in a democracy (Hamburg) in this case, but also Europe in general, passing laws through their representatives regulating how businesses must treat personal data.

If you want to do business in their jurisdiction, then you must abide by their laws. If you don't like it, you can cease doing business in that jurisdiction.

The fact that you are named Mark Zuckerburg doesn't give you the right to ignore the laws of a sovereign state.

Re:lol

[Anonymous Coward]

It has everything to do with this "internet thing."

Scenario: I am in Massachusetts, in the Untied States of America. I have franchise here.

If you connect to my server in my Massachusetts data center, then you are doing business in Massachusetts. I am not going to burden myself to know the law of every sovereign nation and subnational entity, I am only going to obey the laws of Massachusetts and the United States. If *you* don't like that, *you* can just keep yourself away from my systems.

Re:lol

[gnud]

You know Facebook has an office in Hamburg, presumably to sell ad space?

Re:lol

[PhilHibbs]

That's fine. You aren't advertising in the UK, you aren't trying to do business with me. If I order something from you, and give you a UK shipping address, it's my problem to deal with the import duty, which I have done when ordering from ThinkGeek. But Facebook clearly are deliberately doing business with German consumers and German companies, so they have to play by German rules when doing so. Same as you have to deal with Massachusetts laws, this "internet thing" doesn't make you immune to that, and it doesn't make Facebook immune to this.

Re:lol

[Anonymous Coward]

BUT facebook has business relationships in Europe as well as an office there. They can close it if they wish. Facebook needs to understand that people in Europe want the data protection directive.

Re:lol

[DarkofPeace]

This isn't all of Germany. This is a city-state. This is more similar to the whole Amazon sales tax issue here in the USA. Jus't because your people access/buy/sale things on a site; does not mean that you have the right to control that site. I'm anti-corporation all the way, I'm just also anti-government totalitarianism too.

Re:lol

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that you are named Mark Zuckerburg doesn't give you the right to ignore the laws of a sovereign state.

What if your name is Julian Assange? Or is that a one-way street?

Re:lol

[Anonymous Coward]

My example was predicated on my not having a presence in Germany.

However, if I do have a presence in Germany, then I guess I am bound by their laws. Facebook's simple out is to gtfo out of Germany (or comply with the law)

Re:lol

[silanea]

The office that threatens to sue is not that of a politician but that of the data protection officer of the State (not city!) of Hamburg. This is not about politicians playing web sheriffs, this is about upholding the law. Some of our data protection laws are slightly overreaching and collide with practical IT needs - server operators who fall under German jurisdiction may not even store IP adresses of visitors, so the stock Apache logging settings violate our laws - but overall our personally identifiable information enjoys strong protection. Several state DPO's are taking initiative against things like Facebook's Like button being embedded into websites, and I clearly see this as a good thing.

Re:lol

[silanea]

Facebook has an office in Hamburg and runs servers in Germany. Any further questions?

Re:lol

[manoweb]

Has Facebook any physical presence in Hamburg?

Re:lol

[psiclops]

Apparently.

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2519524&cid=38017546

other comments mention servers and offices.

Re:lol

[fyngyrz]

You know that office isn't what you connect to when you connect to Facebook?

Re:lol

[psiclops]

What laws did he break that the major US Media corporations didn't?

Also i wasn't aware that he was trying to do business in the US.

Re:lol

[Anonymous Coward]

No, this is not a local issue, the reason Hamburg is doing this is because the headquarters of Facebook Germany are in Hamburg, so the Hamburg Data Protection Officer is the one that has to deal with a company that is breaking the law, if a German company based in NY breaks the law it is the duty of the NY Procecution office to deal with it, not the duty of congress is it ?

Re:lol

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't about connecting and you know it. This is about selling personal information.

Re:lol

[nosferatu1001]

You know that they sell space to German advertising companies, yes?

Thats' "doing busines in Germany"

Re:lol

[nosferatu1001]

...or do business with any German companies based on German users information.

Trouble is they WANT to do that, otherwise german user arent worth any money to them.

Re:lol

[tehcyder]

You know that office isn't what you connect to when you connect to Facebook?

You're getting a bit desperate now.

No, that physical office in Hamburg employing German citizens to sell advertising space on Facebook's German website may indeed not physically house the actual server where Facebook.de is stored, but so what?

Re:lol

[tehcyder]

Facebook has an office in Hamburg and runs servers in Germany. Any further questions?

Yeah, is Germany in Europe?

Signed, a confused Yank.

Re:lol

[tehcyder]

Has Facebook any physical presence in Hamburg?

Have you somehow filtered out all of the dozens of previous posts in this thread explaining that, yes, they do?

Re:lol

[Anonymous Coward]

so then he is planning on finding the German Branch of Facebook , so Facebook is forced to do the math. Is the feature ( which is being opposed ) going to generate enough money world wide to make it worth closing the German branch and selling advertisements from German businesses from the Austrian office.

SIlly goose

[Joehonkie]

Silly goose, only the government can use facial recognition!

Re:SIlly goose

[MichaelKristopeitDad]

Exactly. The problem is that banning face recognition just hides the problem for everyone, and so the problem becomes more insidious.

Of course, it is a bad idea to use face recognition by default. But it has the advantage of making people aware of what is going on. Because face recognition is probably available to many organizations today, and they probably currently use it as we speak. So all in all, Facebook raising awareness over here looks like a good idea. Because it's out there. And there's no one can forbid me to install such software and scan the entire web with it.

Re:SIlly goose

[Anonymous Coward]

Silly goose, only the government can use facial recognition!

but I thought Facebook & Google were branches of the NSA?

Re:SIlly goose

[fsckmnky]

You can order anti-facial recognition technology for your personal use and prevent this sort of thing from ever happening to you. I bought a 100 foot roll of anti-facial recognition technology for $3.00 at the local hardware store. Works great.

Its quite simple.

[Anonymous Coward]

No European travel any more for any of Facebooks senior management.
Even if they're just "passing through"

It'll be the same treatment as meted out to the management of European gambling/poker websites who got snatched whilst visiting the US.

What's their incentive to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand - yeah, 420k is like nothing to facebook, but why would they ever pay? I.e., what can germany do to facebook? Boycott it? So what? Ask the US government to hold up their ruling? It hasn't been declared illegal in the US.

Paying would imply some agreement that this would, could or should be illegal, so facebook clearly has an incentive to fight it. I'm wondering what incentive they have to not simply ignore it. (I assume I'm missing something.)

Thanks!

Re:What's their incentive to pay

[ThatsMyNick]

I.e., what can germany do to facebook? Boycott it?

Order German ISPs to block facebook. Its as simple as that.

Re:What's their incentive to pay

[digitig]

I don't understand - yeah, 420k is like nothing to facebook, but why would they ever pay? I.e., what can germany do to facebook?

Confiscate assets held in Germany? Including everything in their German offices and all their income going through German bank accounts (such as the fees they charge German advertisers for serving up German advertisements -- sorry, sponsored links -- to German customers)?

Re:What's their incentive to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

If there is a single website in the world that would introduce the unwashed masses to anti-censorship tech upon being censored, Facebook is it. This would be a good thing.

Re:What's their incentive to pay

[fnj]

All right, but why do they even have offices in Germany? Or any other country foreign to their home country? What does it gain them? It's obvious how it exposes them. Are they stupid?

Re:What's their incentive to pay

[silanea]

Presumably you are not from Germany. Privacy and data protection are regarded quite differently over here compared to, say the US. We had two totalitarian regimes in one century on German soil who drew most of their power from the insane amount of information they collected on individual citizens, and the last few months of public debate have been dominated by several data snooping and retention initiatives by our government and police, and this debate may well cost a few top-ranking politicians and public servants their seats/jobs.

People here regard information about themselves as their property. When Google announced the expansion of StreetView to Germany they brought a shitstorm upon themselves. Take a look around German cities in StreetView. A large number of houses had to be blurred out because of complaints by residents. Google very narrowly avoided concerted legal action from our federal and states' data protection officers. Facebook will have to follow the law or risk being banned. We had quite a few successful social networks here before Facebook opened up to international users. Right now they are barely keeping themselves afloat, but should Facebook be kicked out they would jump to fill the void with a legal alternative.

Re:What's their incentive to pay

[BlueCoder]

It's nearly impossible to block internet traffic unless you prohibit encryption and even then there is stenography(where you hide data in other data).

Block a domain name? Well there are alternative name servers.. very easy to setup. You can even mix and match them.

And while any website may prefer a local domain for a country there is nothing preventing anyone from setting up service for people that speak a language... not all German speakers are in Germany and nor are all English websites from the UK. Facebook makes money in ad revenue and clicks. If they pull away from Germany then there will be brokers that will figure out the complexities and arrange ad space for German advertizes that want to reach the German speakers that are more than capable of getting on Facebook. If anything it will probably make the site more popular.

It all comes down to a question of convenience. You can be sure Facebook isn't the only one doing facial recognition for online pictures. Basically what this commission wants to prohibit is pictures on Facebook period because it's the pictures that are the issue and causing privacy concerns.

Re:What's their incentive to pay

[psiclops]

Apparently they do. http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2519524&cid=38017546

can't tell you why 'cause i have about 0 knowledge in whats involved in running a global corporation.

Re:What's their incentive to pay

[fyngyrz]

That's all fine. You know the Facebook servers are here in the US, right? You know you can "opt out" of Facebook by simply not using it, right? Also that Germany can cripple its nameservers, etc., by not allowing access to Facebook, right? (oh, and also that any user can get around that with zero problems) You know that the office in Germany is not what you connect to when you connect to Facebook, right?

Facebook is a scumbag company. Ethical retards. They scam users out of personal data -- that's their entire gig. So the problem here appears to be that you're using them. Stop that. See how easy that was?

Wait, you say you want to use them? Sorry, I didn't realize you were idiots.

Re:What's their incentive to pay

[psiclops]

Yes, complete censorship is impossible, however they are not trying to prevent German users from dealing with Facebook, they are trying to prevent Facebook from dealing with German users.

i highly doubt it will make the site more popular for German users.
I can't see a lot of people jumping through hoops just to connect to a social networking site that all their other German aren't using because they also cannot be bothered.

Re:What's their incentive to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet another moron who fails to realise that even if you don't want to have anything to do with Failbook, some other moron can upload your picture and tag it.

The whole problem boils down to trusting client-submitted data. Why the fuck does Facebook allow users to tag people on photographs and take their word that what they entered was correct?

At the very least, for every tag, the person being identified should be notified and asked "Are you this person?". If they're not on FB, the tag should be discarded right away.

FB must be stopped. Problem is, they feed on idiocy. It's like trying to starve a rat in a corn house.

Re:What's their incentive to pay

[Pf0tzenpfritz]

Freeze payments from European advertisers to FB or vice versa and confiscate the $420k. That's what they would do in case FB refused to pay. BTW: They are not a German company and they are not bound to German legislation, ok. So I am going to start a business in Berlin, Germany and sell copies of Windows 7 Ultimate Pro for a fiver. I'm not a US comany, so why should I fucking care about Mickeysofts "intellectual property"? Notice something?

Re:What's their incentive to pay

[xenobyte]

I just don't get what the problem is... How can anyone abuse street view and it's images of buildings? - I mean I've been to Germany more times than I can count and I've taken pictures of buildings (I love interesting architecture) a gazillion times with no hassle what so ever. I've even been allowed inside private yards and so on to take pictures from that angle as well, and still no problems. What harm can street view do? - It already blurs persons so it cannot be the risk of 'locating' individuals that's the problem. And the street view don't show who's inside the buildings, not what valuables are in there, so it cannot be the 'shopping catalog for thieves' they're afraid of either.

I'm the kind of person that welcomes cameras and similar. I'm not doing anything even remotely questionable in public so I don't care if someone want to make a note of me doing basically the same thing every day. I go to work the same way at the same time every day and the route is also always the same. I go home usually at the time, again the same route every day, only sometimes I shop for groceries on the way. When I shop for groceries I buy more or less the same things - milk, bread, cereal, sometimes a sixpack, sometimes a lightbulb, sometimes some clothing, shoes and so on. Nothing to hide there. I'm sure most people's lives are equally boring.

What the cameras may reveal are people up to no good.

I cannot accept that people have any right to be left alone while they semi-break the law or whatever other mischief they might be up to. If guy is visiting his mistress and don't want that to be caught on camera, the correct solution is to not do that. You are no more 'safe' when there's no cameras around. Think of the stupid show "cheaters". Yes, spouses do hire investigators to follow the cheaters and gather evidence to be used later to this effect. The only certain way to avoid getting caught is to stop cheating. You don't have the right to cheat in private. If you move around in public, people (possibly with cameras) and cameras might see that. It the nature of being "out in public".

And when it comes to crime, I'm all for the use of cameras to spot, identify and convict the criminals. It's both just and appropriate that people doing rioting in London was caught on camera, identified from those pictures and convicted based on what they were seen to be doing and whatever evidence could be found otherwise (stolen goods from looting for instance). I find it necessary that those committing arson and other form of gross vandalism were convicted to pay for the damages in full. I know they most likely never will be able to settle this debt, but they will have to live with it, just like their victims will have to live with the losses from the arson etc. - it's fair and just.

Actually I'm in favor of ALWAYS convicting criminals to pay restitution for the losses incurred by their victims. And I don't mind if you lock up those unable or unwilling to pay until they do (in special debtors prisons), with the option to work in jail towards settling the debt. Sure, it may take them the rest of their lives, but then they won't do more mischief while they're behind bars, and society will be much better off. After all, about 98% of all crimes are committed by people that have committed crimes before so throwing people in jail for a very long time after just one offense will reduce crime rates immensely. It will also be an effective deterrent.

Re:What's their incentive to pay

[silanea]

You know that Facebook has an office in Hamburg and that they do business here and therefore fall under German jurisdiction, right? You know that Facebook collects data on members and non-members through embeddings in third-party websites which violates German law, right? You know that Facebook keeps changing its TOS and introducing new privacy-invading features after people signed up on what they thought were acceptable terms, which violates German law, right?

Wait, you say you have no bloody clue as to what is involved in this issue? Sorry, I didn't realise you were an idiot.

Re:What's their incentive to pay

[Methos137]

None of which actually stops their use or forces them to pay.

Re:What's their incentive to pay

[nosferatu1001]

Yet another moron who doesnt realise that Facebook does business with German companies using the data of German citizens

THAT makes it part of the germans jurisdiction.

Re:What's their incentive to pay

[nosferatu1001]

Because they want to do busines in Germany (they want money, shock!) and so this helps them do business with german companies.

Dropping the first part, the office, doesnt affect ehy are doing the latter - meaning they would still be under german jurisdiction.

Re:What's their incentive to pay

[silanea]

I just don't get what the problem is... How can anyone abuse street view and it's images of buildings?

I did not say this behaviour was rational. I for one love StreetView, and I can only shake my head over those people who seriously fear its use by muggers, terrorists etc. But I understand where they are coming from.

On the other hand I run my own mail server because I do not trust any commercial provider to ensure the privacy of my messages. And I run pretty much overkill grade encryption between my mobile devices and my home network. Not that I had anything to hide, mind you, my life is just as "boring" as yours. But since I do nothing wrong why should I allow the state or anyone else to poke through my personal messages? Similarly I am very careful about what and how I post to my Facebook and G+ accounts - which are both registered under pseudonyms using dedicated e-mail addresses. And similarly I am very much against the widespread use of cctv, police video recordings at lawful protests etc. We still have an assumption of innocence until proven guilty, and that extends from the formal legal principle towards an expectation of being left alone by the state as long as one does not break the law.

Besides, if half of all the money that is thrown out of the window on technical solutions that, in the end, work at best 10% of the time, was spent on more and better trained police I would feel much safer. What good is it to you when your being beaten to death by some lowlives is caught on tape from five different angles but the one officer who could have saved your life had to be let go because the state could not afford their salary?

Re:What's their incentive to pay

[V for Vendetta]

You know you can "opt out" of Facebook by simply not using it, right?

Apparently, you can't

Granted - you and I also no ways around that. But Mom & Pop don't ... and that's the point. They don't know that FB tracks them and even if they would, most of them have no idea how to avoid being tracked.

Re:What's their incentive to pay

[tehcyder]

Paying would imply some agreement that this would, could or should be illegal,

That's because it is illegal.

(I assume I'm missing something.)

You certainly are.

Re:What's their incentive to pay

[omnichad]

I'm not sure that shorthand is all that hard to crack. Perhaps you mean steganography.

Re:What's their incentive to pay

[Anonymous Coward]

You sound like anti-privacy.

If you don't have privacy, how can you criticize your boss, government other individuals or companies without fear for retribution?

If you abolish privacy, there's no way to go against a totalitarian power, be it anyone you can imagine.

Think of the consequences. We would end up in a 3rd world country a la 1984.

Privacy is a tool to help democracy, if you're against that then propose something better.

Re:What's their incentive to pay

[cpghost]

I just don't get what the problem is... How can anyone abuse street view and it's images of buildings?

Most of those paranoid enough to blur their houses objected to the connection between the image and the exact GPS location. Images per se were generally not the problem.

How wimpy

[Hatta]

Will Facebook gladly pay on Tuesday for an open faced Hamburger today?

In other news

[mr1911]

Facebook pulls out of Germany and suspends all German accounts. Johannes Caspar is removed from office when the Facebook-deprived masses start rioting in the streets.

Re:In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

That might actually the best thing that could happen.
Facebook is a total waste of time

Re:In other news

[psiclops]

Yes, I'm going to riot in the streets because some company based in another country has decided to stop doing business with people in my country.

"what do we want", "Legal immunity for overseas corporations" "when do we want it" "NOW!"

Re:In other news

[Bucky24]

Well first of all I really doubt FB would suspect all German accounts. Remember, to them customers are products. Though I can see Facebook users rioting... Some undoubtedly would figure out ways around the block. It would advance proxy technology by a decade :D

Re:In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

What constitutes a "German account". I'm an American who happens to live in Germany and have a FB account that I setup while I was living in the US.

Re:In other news

[Anonymous Coward]

How are you going to start a riot if there is no Facebook?

Re:In other news

[cpghost]

That's the French who always take to the streets. Germans just grumble and stay at home.

Typical slashdot bullshit comment

[Anonymous Coward]

When do companies ever make a stand like that?
Oh right, never. Facebook will just adapt their service.

Re:Typical slashdot bullshit comment

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Amazon killed its affiliate program for a number of US states when they went broke and tried to rob the company. And I seem to remember google left china, no?

Re:Typical slashdot bullshit comment

[c-reus]

Google did not leave China.

so if i read this right

[Eponymous Hero]

the cost of using biometric facial recognition technology on facebook in germany is about 300k euros.

Re:so if i read this right

[psiclops]

I dunno, but i don't think paying a fine for breaking a law makes it okay to continue breaking that law forever.

Re:so if i read this right

[Eponymous Hero]

sure it does. that's what a fine means. if they really want to punish facebook for doing what it wants, they could go the chinese route and ask google to censor facebook out of their country. i'm sure google would be happy to oblige.

here in san diego activists got together and made it illegal for seaworld to pollute their own habitats with the fireworks show they do every night at 9pm. the punishment is a fine. instead of seaworld giving a fuck about their own animals, environment, and neighbors, they simply pay the fine as a cost of doing business and continue the fireworks shows so you clueless out of towners can see something you've never seen before...fireworks.

fines are not meant to discourage bad behavior, they're meant to skim the profits off the top of bad behavior. welcome to the real world.

Who Do You Think That You Are?

[Nom du Keyboard]

Who do you think you are, Johannes Caspar? Facebook doesn't respond to anyone else complaining about their high-handed actions, so why should they respond to you?

Re:Who Do You Think That You Are?

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy who can hand out fines of 100ks of euros? Sure Facebook will have no problem affording some of those fines, but if he can keep them coming then it will start to hurt.

Wait a minute

[fyngyrz]

You have it backwards. If German users want to use a US service, they can deal with how the service works as constituted in its home country. If the Germans don't want to use some service, they always have that option. This is legal fuckery, no more. Typical mommy government idiocy.

I'm no fan of Facebook -- quite the opposite, in fact, I outright despise them -- but again, my answer is not to use Facebook, not to try to tell them what they can or cannot do.

Re:Wait a minute

[realityimpaired]

What you say would be true if FB didn't actually do business in Germany. The thing is, they do. They have offices in Hamburg, and they also do business with German advertisers, selling the information of German citizens. If they want to continue doing business in Germany, then they comply with German laws. Be grateful. This wouldn't be the first time some American company with no concept of consumer rights has tried to fuck over its customers, only to be thwarted by the laws of a country where they do business, and it certainly won't be the last. Perhaps you should be bitching about the state of privacy laws and individual rights in the US rather than about a sovereign nation enforcing its laws on companies seeking to do business in their jurisdiction.

If they were strictly a US site that happened to be accessible from Germany (like, for example, Slashdot), then perhaps what you say would have merit. The thing is, they aren't, and it doesn't. This isn't really any different from the US enforcing its laws on foreign companies... case in point, Bell Canada has to comply with SarbOx rules, because some of their stock gets traded through the NYSE. This is a company that doesn't have any customers outside of Canada, that doesn't offer service outside of Canada (doesn't even offer service to all of Canada), that doesn't buy services from providers outside of Canada, and that is majority owned by Canadians. By all judgements, they have even less to do with the US than Facebook has to do with Germany, but because they trade on the NYSE, they have to comply with US trade rules, and the only way to not comply with rules like SarbOx would be to de-list from the NYSE. And yet nobody in the US is bitching about that, or the thousands of other examples of foreign companies that have to comply with US laws to do business in the states. Hypocrisy much?

Re:Wait a minute

[psiclops]

No, you're the one that has it backwards.

For one Facebook is not just a US service.
They have an office in Hamburg.
They have www.facebook.de registered. this is a German owned TLD.
They have 21,880,080 German Users

If i were to start selling greeting cards full of anthrax which i shipped to your country, would you just decide that people in your country should not use my greeting card service?

Re:Wait a minute

[fyngyrz]

If i were to start selling greeting cards full of anthrax which i shipped to your country, would you just decide that people in your country should not use my greeting card service?

Yes, of course. What a stupid question.

Re:Wait a minute

[fyngyrz]

That's a mistake that can be easily rectified. Facebook can, and hopefully will, remove their sub-agency from your country. It isn't relevant to the issue at hand, which is FB is an American operation, not a German one.

Re:Wait a minute

[fyngyrz]

They have offices in Hamburg, and they also do business with German advertisers, selling the information of German citizens.

Easily rectified. Hopefully that's exactly what will happen. Let's see if FB, a company of enfeebled, ethics-free idiots if there ever was one, has the sense to figure it out. In the meantime, Germans can continue to shoot themselves in the foot all they want.

Re:Wait a minute

[psiclops]

That's a mistake that can be easily rectified.

"Whoops i accidentally opened an office in Hamburg, registered a German TLD and started doing business overseas " yes i can see the mistake now.

Facebook can, and hopefully will, remove their sub-agency from your country.

yes we are in agreeance. they can stop doing business in Germany if they wish to not comply with German laws. we are also in agreeance that it would be a good thing if they did stop doing business in Germany.

It isn't relevant to the issue at hand, which is FB is an American operation, not a German one.

How is the fact that they do business in Germany not-relevant to the fact that they do not wish to comply with German laws???

Re:Wait a minute

[tehcyder]

No, you have it backwards, your hatred of government has blinded you to the simple truth.

If someone lives in Germany and uses Facebook in Germany they both have to follow German laws, not US ones. And the German person does indeed have the option not to use Facebook, just as Facebook have the option not to operate in Germany at all if they can't follow its laws.

Think of Microsoft getting fined by the EU.for their monopolistic practices. The EU didn't do this on the basis of what laws Microsoft broke in the US, but on those it broke in the EU. Microsoft sold their software to EU customers living in the EU, so it was EU laws they broke..

please read IBM and the Holocaust

[decora]

and you will understand why Germans have a stick up their ass about this sort of thing.

Re:please read IBM and the Holocaust

[fsckmnky]

Blaming IBM for the holocaust is a lot like blaming Carnot for the crime of arson. I suppose Volta is to blame for the BP oil spill, because he didn't personally connect his battery to the emergency failsafe system.

Re:please read IBM and the Holocaust

[cffrost]

Blaming IBM for the holocaust [...]

That's a strawman; nobody's "blaming IBM for the holocaust."

How would you manage this?

[rabidmuskrat]

If you run a site that is accessible internationally, how can you ensure that you're always abiding by all nations laws? At what point can a country up and decide you're breaking one of their laws and they can start fining you?

Re:How would you manage this?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are confusing business and accessibility, I run a site that can be accessed from around the world, but only do business in the UK, so only have to abide by UK and pan-European law, if foreign governments do not like it they have the power to block the site locally but nothing else. Facebook has an office in Hamburg hence has to comply with German law.

Re:How would you manage this?

[nosferatu1001]

...and does business in Germany, so closing the office wouldnt work.

mo3 3own

[Anonymous Coward]

centralized models some Of you have would choose to use [anti-slash.org] GNAA (GAY NIGGER Talk to one of the fly They looked gains market share of OpenBSD versus any parting shot, sux0r status, *BSD ASSOCIATION OF polite to bring of progrees. house... pathetic. contributed code empire in decline, ransom for their big deal. Death members' creative failure, its corpse WAS IN THE TEA I The reaper BSD's infinitesimally charnel house. been many, not the by BSDI who sell Thing for the the choosing Just yet, but I'm a change to there are only and easy - only

What's all the fuss about?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignoring the arguments around Facebook "doing business" in Germany, why is this facial recognition feature actually an issue?

It only provides suggestions for people YOU ARE ALREADY FRIENDS WITH. It's not like it's identifying faces for some drunken J. Random who was walking past your house one night.

Facebook banned? Hamburg banned.

[bill_mcgonigle]

Facebook has fewer guns than the Nazis did - and the Nazis may have been enabled by information but they executed their plans by force, which is what one of the parties here (not Facebook) is doing.

But, anyway, I were Facebook, my response would be to disable the accounts of the Hamburg users and apologize for not having the desire to customize the platform to every locality's unique laws. Facebook could potentially be up against tens of thousands of micro-customizations here which would be hell to QA.

Let the people sort out with their government how important this sort of prosecution is to them, and let the local networks take back their old job.

pennys

[Anonymous Coward]

Is 420,000 even enough? What's that number based on?

Hope Facebook wins

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate facebook but the idea of national governments existing, or that privacy is a rational concept, makes me even more angry.

Hamburg is not a state

[cbraescu1]

"the German state of Hamburg"

Actually Hamburg is a so-called "free city" inside Germany (i.e., is not part of any state / land) due to its history as a free city since 1189. While technically it is a self-governing entity at the level of state, its name and real status is that of a "free and Hanseatic city".

Re:Hamburg is not a state

[Lieutenant_Dan]

Technically; Hamburg is a city-state; just like Berlin and Bremen/Bremerhaven. Kiel, Luebeck, Rostock, et al, are also free and Hanseatic cities, just not states in Germany (anymore).

300000€?

[JockTroll]

Chump change. Arrest any fecesbook official in Germany and deport them to Bergen-Belsen. Occupy all European countries hosting anything related to fecesbook, round up the persons involved and deport them as well. Let them taste Zyklon-B. Send a Totenkopf Death Squad to the US to apprehend this Zuckerberg guy and deport him. Work will set him free. This is the German thing to do.

Nice precedent

[Syberz]

Unfortunately, Zuck can probably find 420k $ between his sofa cushions, so it's not much of a deterrent.

Thank you Hamburg!

[G3ckoG33k]

Thank you Hamburg!

That's why I only use my cat's picture...

[crovira]

Nobody wants to look at my ugly mug anyway.

I used my cat "Wiki" as my avatar until he died and now I'm using "Ixie" for as long as she lasts.

Facebook's reply

[cpghost]

Facebook unfriends Hamburg...

Aspies

[Anonymous Coward]

Is everyone in Germany a weird aspie?

The glasses they wear, the fashions, the shoes. Their rules. It seems the most officious place in the world!

What is wrong with Germans?

Only 300k?

[jevring]

That's just the cost of doing business. Even if one state actually believes they can fine a company in a completely different part of the world, this will not make a dent. It's a token, at most, and not a very good one.