Slashdot Mirror
Facebook On Collision Course With New EU Privacy Laws
An anonymous reader writes "Facebook and other U.S. internet companies are faced with a new EU data protection regime, the Christian Science Monitor reports. U.S. concepts of free expression and commerce will battle European support for privacy and state legislation. 'Companies must understand that if they want access to 500 million consumers in the EU, then they have to comply. This is not an option,' said a spokesman for the EU Justice Commissioner."
First first post!
"U.S. concepts of free expression" wow!
Facebook (and other operators, such as google) need to understand that they don't have a "right" to sell any and all information they can gather. If they can't meet the rules, someone else will be happy to do so and take their users away from them. That's what competition is about.
Let's call it what it is, Anti-Social Media.
... U.S. internet companies are faced with a new EU data protection "regime" ...
newspeak ? the word "regime" should be used at EU Govts. ?
mmaaaa... EU are axis of evil "regimes", they do not let our companies do douchebaggery which is our way of life !!! they want accountability... !!! how dare they !!!
...Facebook's first priority is no longer its users' privacy (if it ever had been). Its first priority now is making money from its shareholders. From advertising space to per-click charges for using its authentication protocols and other bits of code, Facebook has other avenues of revenue than selling user data. Having close on a billion accounts live right now is a bonus for Facebook, as it shows a more or less loyal customer base for any other company that seeks a captive target.
Hence, deeply personal data you might find on FB that might find its way into some other company's database or metric for them to use to tailor their product to a target consumer, is unlikely to be uniquely identifiable - it's infinitely more likely to be statistical in nature. The single most likely candidates for individual monitoring would be those already on watch lists or those who trip warning triggers (yes, there is tech out there to monitor even "closed" or spiderproofed websites: that the police in the UK can access locked down Facebook accounts (seen it) as though the pages were Wayback mirrored is evidence enough of that).
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
The "U.S. concepts of free expression and commerce" mentioned are of the current Corporatist Government, and are not representative of "U.S." views. I would thank anyone writing about this to make that distinction.
As I have been saying for years now, if you really want to look at the demographics of the United States, you really have to consider the citizens and the Federal government separately, because the Federal government has been so completely out of touch with the wants and needs of the average citizen.
"U.S. concepts of free expression and commerce", if by that you mean the vast majority of people who live here, very much do include personal privacy. Anyone who thinks otherwise has a distorted view of what's really going on. And anyone who represents the Federal government's "views" as those of the average American citizen is likewise out of touch.
'Companies must understand that if they want access to 500 million consumers in the EU, then they have to comply. This is not an option,'
The EU legislation needs to learn the same lesson that the US legislators haven't learned yet... The internet is a flexible, resilient system that will route around damage, and attempts to censor it only end up hurting the censor's pockets and/or public image. See the Google vs. China debacle last year, for one high-profile (and perhaps high-profit) example. Alternatively, type "SOPA" or "PIPA" into your favorite search engine, and see the raging fire of the responses.
Not only do I think the EU's new privacy laws will be (by and large) ignored, but I think FaceBook will only pay attention if their users band together in ridiculously large numbers to complain... by making a FaceBook page about it.
The problem here boils down to "we make more money with this scheme than your piddly little fines can ever hope to 'punish' us", and "we're not even based in your country, so your laws mean precisely as much as we allow them to" ... besides, it's not like these sites are providing a public service, or coercing people's "private" information. If you want to play the game, you gotta give your name. Wanna play some more? Give us your cell phone number. Don't like giving away your "private" info to just any website that asks? Be more selective about the stuff you do online, and only transact with sites you trust and/or don't actually care about the information they want. Or do what many are already doing, and simply lie.
At what point did everyone forget that old axiom "Knowledge is Power"? Or does no one make the connection between money, power, and knowledge? Does no one realize that it is just as easy to use the equation "Money = Power = Information"?
On to slightly unrelated, and yet completely relevant discussion:
We're at a strange place in a legal sense - there are thousands of unenforceable laws on the books, most of them about ridiculously convoluted methods of acquiring things/money/information in an illicit fashion, and yet there are literally billions of people who care so little about these "minor details" that they have "illegal" music on their portable audio devices. Even the copyright-enforcement people have been caught "stealing" music and video from the original artists. (Yeah, I know, the source would seem to be biased, but it was the second result for a google query "copyright agency caught stealing music", and the first actually relevant one... interestingly enough, this article about the Dutch having this issue wasn't even the one I was looking for - the first case I heard about was in Canada).
At some point, the laws aren't going to be worth the paper the warrants aren't even printed on anymore. It's fairly apparent that it's all about an outmoded system's power grab, just like the ??AA's money grab with the copyright legislation. The danger here is that the system is getting so absurd that no one will pay attention to any of the laws, because the only ones with any actual threat of punishment are ones that they can't enforce, due to the sheer number of people breaking them.
As an example, when this new American health-care reform thing goes through, and everyone is "required" to carry health insurance, I'm wondering what the response will be if someone refuses... will they arrest them for being sick and going to a hospital? If so, the American taxpayer will feed them, clothe them, house them, and pay for their healthcare - as "punishment" for not paying astronomical fees for what amounts to legalized gambling (and what else can you call insurance, really?)
The only upside to being a "good citizen" any more, obe
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Was this summary explicitly written in trollspeak to ignite yet another US vs Europe flamewar on /. ?
I never understood the objection to targeted advertising. I don't particularly enjoy sitting through adds for tampons, dating services, or political candidates. But I quite like ads for electronics, camping gear, movies, cars and things like that. So why wouldn't I want a website to know what kinds of ads interest me? Targeted ads are greatly preferable to general ads.
I'll be in favor of a "right to be forgotten" if it applies to the government and banks. Otherwise, it's not really worth it.
"It's your data" so if you want us to delete your GPS locations
crossreferenced with your search habits you will have to give
up your gmail.
All in the new simplified agreement that covers everything.
The product facebook sale (facebook user/consumer data) will NOT be sellable in europe. See even if they go around the law, and simply say they are an US company and don't need to comply, it is still a dead end for them, ebcause the company mostly interrested in the data are not US one but EU one. Do you think will a german user data will interrest, say, target/new york ? And for local german firm, buying the data from the US will not help as they would have a high risk to be to accused of having data on their own customer and get the ire of data protection law, the law can't stop people giving it away to US where it is "lost" but as soon as it comes back to EU territory game over EU law again take hold. That data would be worst than radioactive waste to handle.
Effectively, if facebook ignore those law / pretend they are an US company They will simply LOSE that EU market completely , as they will serve people but won't be able to do much with the data. This is why your "routing around the damage" won't work : that data in the very end is for local consumption. If the local (the firm buying the data) knows they can't use the data, then facebook is SOL and no matter how much routing or where they put their server.
So yes, for facebook it would be a pretty bad deal.
This law is to protect the vulnerable. Why have laws against child porn its free speech..
When the person who's whole life is on facebook grows up they will probably regret it yet by then its too late.
At least having decent privacy laws and data protection will means that its just a service they used then moved on.
And who knows what companies like google and facebook will do when good times turn to bad.
(We are a failing company but we have heaps of data - lets just sell it to a company that sells drugs or does door to door visits - who knows)
The site belongs to facebook. It is hosted in the US. That data is sitting on their computers. Who are these law makers that tell facebook what to do with the data that is sitting on facebooks own computers. This idea of trying to regulate what people do with the devices they own is simply laughable. I have a solution. If you don't want facebook to have your personal stuff then don't put your personal stuff on facebook.
In my view I see facebook far more responsible with peoples data then the very politicians trying to police them. I guess the EU politicians are not done messing up their own country they have to go mess up other peoples businesses as well? good grief.
Are you listening, David Drummond, you fucking asshole?
--
Tired of the Google assholes? Swtich to DuckDuckGo today!
I think a bigger problem is that this new privacy directed is also in conflict with the Patriot Act. If I understand it correctly, the Patriot Act allows the USA government to seize any data (no matter where it is being hosted in the world) from any company that has a legal entity in the USA. The new privacy directive does not allow any government to size this data. To me it seems that any company that has a legal entity in the USA can no longer store any private (customer) data of people falling under the laws of to the EU.
... that the fact that a specific website is accessible from country XYZ, does NOT mean this website must comply with the local laws of country XYZ.
Should read
The EU legislation has NOTHING to do with freedom of speech. The summary is busy trying to paint a red herring argument where there is none, just to stir up good old "Proud American" sentiment.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Facebook is the largest and most sophisticated data mining operation that has ever existed on Earth. It's very simple actually. If you want to keep any semblance of privacy, don't surrender your personal data to them. PERIOD. You don't need Facebook. It solves no problem. It creates a lot of them, though.
Facebook is on collision course with any privacy laws.
This evil anti American regime must be stopped at all cost!
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
'Companies must understand that if they want access to 500 million consumers in the EU, then they have to comply. This is not an option,' said a spokesman for the EU Justice Commissioner."
The EU is essentially claiming that accessibility of a site to EU users subjects the site to EU laws. That's the same argument that the US uses to go after overseas sites that violate US law. While privacy is certainly a valid concern, the overall concept is a dangerous one. If a company doesn't have a physical prince in a location should it be subject to local laws? Should the government where it is located enforce foreign judgements?
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Colonialism is dead and Europe no longer controls the world.
privacy almost always loses.
FB has European offices in Amsterdam, Brussels, Dublin, Hamburg, London, Madrid, Milan, Paris and Stockholm. According to FB, 80% of it's active users are outside USA and Canada so it's likely that there are more EU users than American users. FB also creates contracts with numerous EU based companies (and probably relies on EU nations to enforce those contracts if necessary) that want to advertise to EU consumers.
Thus, I think you're painting a bit misleading picture when you say "EU is essentially claiming that accessibility of a site to EU users subjects the site to EU laws". Given that the situation is what it is, I don't see how its operations could not fall under EU jurisdiction.
And if they don't comply? Then what? You'll create the Great Firewall of EU to keep Facebook out of your countries?
the other option is that, the EU standing pat, the rest of the civilized world passes them by. and the EU becomes like Iran, isolated by their own paranoias.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
If the EU or any government group wants to be in charge of what information can be shared, all data should be hosted by them and requests for access should have to be approved by the individual. The data will continue to be hosted by them, and if you want to prevent a system from accessing it, you should be able to make a request like "Stop Facebook from having access" then Facebook would lose access to everything about you without them doing anything at all.
Now, who wants the government to have access to everything of yours? I trust Facebook more.
However, this is the internet. If I post something about someone else, who owns it? I think I do, but some laws say the other person does.
I would have thought Slashdot would be supportive of attempts to allow people to control over their private personal data? In my opinion, people who give personal data to any organisation in order for them to provide a service should have the right to ensure that the data is not kept or sold when the person no longer requires the service. Also a person should be protected against organisations collecting data without them being aware for commercial gain. I can finally cancel my Facebook account and actually be sure that my information has been deleted. This is a Good Thing!
From TFA:
Mr. Rosen says the regulations will create a dramatic clash between the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy, arguing that under the proposal, websites like Facebook will be obliged to not only to delete on request material that users upload, such as photos, but any shared copies of photos – and potentially even material uploaded by third parties that another user objects to.
Funny, when private persons want to prevent others from sharing their media, they call it "preventing free expression". I never heard the mainstream media call it that when corporations want to prevent others from sharing their media.
Is the right to keep your own media to yourself less important if you do it for privacy, than if you you do it for profit?
Universal ID.
Let's wait a while and see how this turns out...
I suppose the EU has the right to block Facebook. If they dare, some people will use proxies and some will not. Oh well.
If a European travels to some other country, do they expect EU laws to apply? This is virtual travel. Europeans who dislike US law should stay home or maybe visit China.
I don't expect to carry a bible in Saudi Arabia or pro-Nazi stuff in Germany. Local laws apply, even if they are fucked up. Facebook is in the USA, so EU law does not apply.
local is USA
When you foreigners visit the USA (physically or virtually) you seem to want your own law. No. This is the USA. Facebook is in the USA. Why in Hell is this so hard to accept? Make your own facebook if you don't like the law over here.
I find it pecularlly puzzling.that TFA speak of "new EU privacy laws". No such thing is involved. No new law. Nothing new about it. Privacy laws have been around, EU wise, for about twenty years. US companies are allowed to make business online in the EU/ provided they comply to the Safe Harbor Principles. The real point is that the enforcement( of the Safe Harbor Principles has been inexistant for too long. The only change, the only newsworthy thing, is that some people managed to formulate a case for the public ministry to have a look at it. Oh, and that there's such a thing as an EU public ministry.
There's nothing like $HOME