Facebook Says EU 'Right To Be Forgotten' Would Harm Privacy

judgecorp writes "The European Commission has proposed a "right to be forgotten" online, which would allow users to remove personal data they had shared. The idea has had a lot of criticism, and now Facebook claims it would actually harm privacy. Facebook says the proposal would require social media sites to perform extra tracking to remove data which has been copied to other sites — but privacy advocates say Facebook has misunderstood what the proposal is all about."

Comments

Misunderstood?

[mcgrew]

privacy advocates say Facebook has misunderstood what the proposal is all about."

Misunderstood, my ass. Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest.

Re:Misunderstood?

[gstoddart]

Misunderstood, my ass. Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest.

Yeah, I'd have to say this is a willful 'misunderstanding'.

Facebook's commodity is your data. That's how they make money. They don't want to be told that they would be required to delete your data upon request.

Any time you see Facebook saying "Privacy laws would harm privacy", the real thing they're saying is "but that would cut into profits".

Re:Misunderstood?

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

"'Facebook misunderstood" is "Facebook obfuscated".

Re:Misunderstood?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're about to become Mark Zuckerberg's bitch. Suck it down!

Re:Misunderstood?

[Artraze]

No, no, you misunderstand. Remember that adage "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail"? Well, all Facebook has is privacy intrusion so of course the only way to enhance privacy is to intrude on it. Makes perfect sense when you think about it.

Re:Misunderstood?

[game kid]

An RTBF would harm Facebook's private use of the data they've gathered from their products.

Re:Misunderstood?

[TheCarp]

Isn't that the exact opposite of Hanlon's Razor?

Better said, and copied right from my old .signature archive:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary
  depends on his not understanding it"
                                  -- U. Sinclair

Re:Misunderstood?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, I think you hit the nail right on the head.

From FB's perspective, this would harm your privacy, because FB will have to find even more creative and treacherous ways to invade user privacy to make up for the fact that users could, at any time, choose to have said data removed. I could easily imagine them creating multiple shell corporations that really "store" your data, and then when you ask to have your data removed they simply say "sorry, we don't store your data, one or more of our many affiliate corporations store and manage user data .. you'll have to submit your requests to them..."

Re:Misunderstood?

[macbeth66]

No, it would not.

Facebook would be responsible for what is posted on servers. Only. If someone copied the data to MySpace, that is a problem for MySpace, not Facebook.

I think you would quite well working for Facebook.

Re:Misunderstood?

[jakimfett]

If by "privacy issues" they're meaning "we stop making money from violating yours"...

Re:Misunderstood?

[Adrian Lopez]

"Misunderstood, my ass. Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest."

Imagine Facebook receives an order to remove information concerning a particular incident. How does Facebook remove this information without going through what all its users have shared or otherwise posted to their accounts?

Re:Misunderstood?

[logjon]

They don't make money from violating mine. Then again, I'm not on facebook because I don't want them to violate my privacy. Damndest thing.

Re:Misunderstood?

[interkin3tic]

If they said "Facebook is lying through their teeth," people would perceive that as negative and would use that as an excuse to ignore what they're saying.

How many times have you been watching an election, and you think there's a clear right and wrong choice (or one clear right choice and several wrong choices), and voters complain that the race had "too much mudslinging."

Sometimes I want to shake such people by the collar and say "IT'S NOT 'NEGATIVE' IF IT'S TRUE, YOU MORON!... OKAY WELL MAYBE IT TECHNICALLY IS, BUT DO YOU GET MY POINT? Alright I'll stop yelling and let you go... wait, why are you running? I was explaining why candidate X is actually bad!"

Anyway, suggesting that it was an innocent misunderstanding and not lying like a senator may simply be PR.

Re:Misunderstood?

[CanHasDIY]

They don't make money from violating mine. Then again, I'm not on facebook because I don't want them to violate my privacy. Damndest thing.

Other people can post pictures of you and "tag" you in them, regardless of whether or not you're actually a member of Facebook.

The only way to know for certain that Facebook isn't violating your privacy would be to have access to every single media item on their servers, and manually go through them all to make sure no one else has posted your private information there.

Or, you know, someone could pass a law...

Re:Misunderstood?

[TFAFalcon]

And the information the other users published isn't private - until they request FB removes it, after which it should be removed. And after that it's gone - no need to go looking through it again.

Re:Misunderstood?

[Anonymous Coward]

This happens with telemarketers all the time. You do business with one company. They send your info to "related partners", who now have a legal reason to start ringing your phone. Of course, when you ask to be removed from the list, it does little to no good, since the secondary "partners" have allowed another ring of shells to sell stuff.

Same with barely legal UCE (not true spam as it is OK under the CAN-SPAM act).

The EU needs to set a policy where if the user sets the data gone, it is gone from FB and any shells, or else.

Re:Misunderstood?

[RobertLTux]

making a few assumtions here

lets say you go to a party and then get drugged out of your mind (spiked drink) they then strip you down shave you and put you in a wig makeup and teddy (with any needed padding). As the party winds down they then start posting pictures AND TAGGING THEM hinting that you maybe wanted to be dressed/act like that.

do you think the Important People in your life would approve?? the ones you haven't met yet??

Re:Misunderstood?

[Obfuscant]

The only way to know for certain that Facebook isn't violating your privacy would be to have access to every single media item on their servers, and manually go through them all to make sure no one else has posted your private information there. Or, you know, someone could pass a law...

And the only way to know that they aren't (or are) violating the law is to ... go through every single media item on their servers to make sure that no one else has posted your private information. Simply saying "someone could pass a law" isn't the solution to this kind of problem. Passing a law doesn't mean you "know for certain" anything.

Re:Misunderstood?

[logjon]

I don't go to places where that would happen.

Re:Misunderstood?

[Teun]

The principle of EU privacy law is quite simple, even Facebook can understand it :)

Facebook is responsible for what it does with your data, not what their users do with it.
So when Facebook shares your data they have the responsibility to on request "unshare".

Re:Misunderstood?

[mcgrew]

Isn't that the exact opposite of Hanlon's Razor?

Pretty much. When someone trots out Hanlon's razor, see if mcgrew's razor fits the circumstance. If not, Hanlon applies. If so, someone's probably scamming someone. If there's an error that harms someone but doesn't help the person that made the error, than Hanlon is right. Too often it excuses malicious behavior -- always look at motives. "Oops, sorry, I made an error. Please don't notice that I benefitted at your expense."

Re:Misunderstood?

[CanHasDIY]

True; even more so if this law, like so many others, isn't enforced.

Re:Misunderstood?

[Anonymous Coward]

when you ask to have your data removed they simply say "sorry, we don't store your data, one or more of our many affiliate corporations store and manage user data .. you'll have to submit your requests to them..."

That would be awesome, because then we can immediately convict them of illegally sharing the data.

Re:Misunderstood?

[History's Coming To]

Personally, I think Facebook's attitude on this is a very good thing in the long run, and I hope they continue in this vein.

Your average user has absolutely no idea, or just doesn't care, what data FB holds on them and how it is used. The more Facebook shout and cry about how difficult it is for them to remove data the more incidents there will be of people being harmed by their policies - this is unfortunate for those individuals, but in the long run it should serve as an education for others, who will hopefully think twice about the personal data they supply and who they supply it to.

Keep it up Zuckerberg, you're providing a valuable service in the long term, and good on you for forsaking the share price in the process, nice to see somebody putting long-term ethical considerations above medium-to-long term profits.

Re:Misunderstood?

[Bengie]

FB isn't supposed to allow linking to removed data. If someone copies data from FB to MySpace, then FB gets a request to remove said data, FB must also filter any links that could be referencing the copied versions on MySpace's site.

EU wants Google to do the same. If someone requests certain data removed, Google must also remove all references to any/all copies any user has made anywhere on the internet, otherwise get fined.

Re:Misunderstood?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, you don't even have to spike my drink for that as I get paid to do that. That's right, I'm a TV/Cross Dressing impersonator and there's damn good money for it

Re:Misunderstood?

[Bengie]

It's much more than that.

Say I post your address, so you request FB to take it down. Then I repost, the someone else's shares that post. FB has to take both down. Say I post on a different site then post a link on FB, they also has to take that down.

I'm not talking about you making many requests each time I repost that info, I'm talking about you only make the request once and FB has to actively monitor and watch for that information from any and all inputs until the end of time. Every new post must be screened against the black-list of "blocked" data.

Good luck with that because that's what the EU wants.

Re:Misunderstood?

[UnknownSoldier]

Right now, maybe you don't.

But it would nice to know that you could guarantee in the future that someone could NOT post less then flattering photos of you.

It all depends on the _context_ and _your_ right to maintain control over how _your_ data is used and NOT mis-used.

Re:Misunderstood?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just understand that Mark Zuckerberg is like a megalomaniac. Meaning: anything that will allow him power over people and their data while subverting privacy, he will do it.

Re:Misunderstood?

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice that your post has nothing to do with Facebook? That's because the real issue is a bunch of flipping retards shaving their friends and posting the resulting "hilarious" pictures online, which will happen whether Facebook exists or not. Tagging is irrelevant to this issue. People need to grow the fuck up and stop blaming internet platforms for their own personal problems.

When someone asks "What do I care if someone posts a picture of me on facebook?", what they're really asking is "What do I care if someone posts a picture of me on facebook when what they can do is exactly the same as any other internet side out there?"

You can't refute this by talking about tags, because tags can be forbidden if you have an account, and if you don't have an account then tags are only linked to you by name. It's not any different from writing the same information in the description, albeit the latter would be more wordy.

Re:Misunderstood?

[Seeteufel]

Facebook's EU lobbyist is Erika Mann. You would not trust her a second even when she was still a socialist representative.

Re:Misunderstood?

[sd4f]

Motives always apply in business decisions, let the old maxim cui bono apply, (translates; "to whose benefit"), and you'll usually see why things happen, the way they happen. Original post, in my opinion, is correct, and i think hanlons razor is too forgiving in the corporate world.

Re:Misunderstood?

[Teun]

You see it way too complicated.

Obviously I don't have a Facebook account but several times I had requests by acquaintances to join them on Facebook, I then requested Facebook to stop all such requests and they honoured it.
This in itself does not do away with the monumental stupidity of my sister and some other 'friends' that 'shared' their contacts including my details with Facebook.

I haven't tried but am sure that under EU law I can request Facebook to remove any and all traces of my details from their database, especially because I don't have or wish an official relation with them.

Re:Misunderstood?

[Bengie]

Removing references to data at a point in time is easy , what the EU also wants is content based filtering that can filter variations of the same data.

I can say, remove my phone number from all of your data. FB must also not allow your phone number to get posted. say my phone number is 555-1234, then someone else posts " 5(5)5 1 2 34" a year after my request. FB better make sure it does get posted lest I find out and sue FB for not honoring my request to not allow my phone number to be posted.

This is why FB, Google, et al are so pissed. It is impossible.

Re:Misunderstood?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Thank you for your request to delete your personal data

Because Facebook LLC-Subcorp 3b is a wholly owned but separate subsidiary of Facebook LLC-Subcorp 2a1, we do not have your facebook credentials such as your username or password (that would violate your privacy).

We do however, store and back up your personal information, which you authorized Facebook LLC-Subcorp 2b2 to transmit to us on your behalf.

Because you have granted Facebook a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty free license to reproduce, reuse, market and otherwise utilize your personal content in the known universe in perpetuity, we will not actually delete your data. We will however, stop re-sharing it with Facebook LLC-Subcorp #1b2, a Malaysian-Ireland-Turkey LLC.

To verify you own the identify you are requesting to purge yourself from our systems, please supply us with the following:

1) Your full name
2) Your place of birth
3) Your date of birth
4) Your mother's maiden name
5) Your current address
6) Your phone number
7) Your email addresses
8) Your login credentials for google
9) A scanned, notarized copy of your driver's license

When we have validated your identity, we will be happy to remove your personal information from our servers.

For our protection, your removal request may be archived for up to seven years. Your personal information may also remain on backup tapes, magnetic media, aggregated dimensional analysis units, and in any other system we have already sold, licensed, subcontracted, or authorized to use on our behalf.

By submitting a removal request, you authorize us to forward your request to subcontractors as we see fit, with whom we may have exclusive business relationships to resell your identity.

Thank you, your privacy is very important to us."

Re:Misunderstood?

[logjon]

But it would nice to know that you could guarantee in the future that someone could NOT post less then flattering photos of you. Given that that's entirely impossible anyway, and any attempt to do so simply infringes on other peoples' rights to free speech without actually accomplishing that goal, I'll pass, thanks.

Re:Misunderstood?

[Hognoxious]

Thing is, if I have some data X and I delete it, somewhere there has to be a record that says "hognoxious deleted X", which contains X.

Otherwise, you can't prove that anyone is illegally holding a copy of X.

Re:Misunderstood?

[Hognoxious]

If that Hanlon dude told me the sky was blue I'd look up to check.

Re:Misunderstood?

[Hognoxious]

When someone asks "What do I care if someone posts a picture of me on facebook?", what they're really asking is "What do I care if someone posts a picture of me on facebook when what they can do is exactly the same as any other internet side out there?"

Theoretically, you're 100% correct. If it's on an interweb, someone could find it.

In practice, if it's not on fuckyou or tubeface, loan officers and HR drones won't be able to. And they're the ones who can make your life suck.

Re:Misunderstood?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Dear Facebook,

Thank you for your response to our legal position.

As you have not complied, your assets across the EU have been frozen, and any executive who sets foot in any EU nation is subject to arrest and criminal prosecution.

Love and hugs,
The guys who actually still make the laws over here

I think when the EU starts fining them substantial amounts and/or issuing arrest warrants, Facebook will notice. Contrary to common belief on US-centric forums like Slashdot, the EU does actually have teeth when it comes to US tech firms taking liberties, and has been known to bite.

In case anyone thinks this is just hyperbole, consider that the EU (both citizenry and government) is getting very fed up with the US (both corporations and government) thinking that it can dictate how everyone else's legal systems and business regulations should work. Anything that screws Facebook while strengthening the EU data protection/privacy position and generating income for the EU via fines is basically a political/economic win/win proposition for the people who are going to be driving the process. Pretty much the only potential downside is losing favour with the US government with consequences elsewhere, but right now the US government is pretty unpopular with everyone so that probably doesn't matter much.

Re:Misunderstood?

[maz2331]

Wouldn't the proper recourse in such a case be to sue the person who uploaded the images or other information under a slander/libel law rather than going after the site that they posted it to?

Re:Misunderstood?

[logjon]

So how much of my money do you want to take at gunpoint to make sure people aren't allowed to talk about the stupid shit you get yourself into?

Re:Misunderstood?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah well in practice you need not to be an idiot and try to control this shit. Outside of that, good luck and welcome to the real world.

Re:Misunderstood?

[scared masked man]

In fact, the EU already has - they are supposed to give you everything they have on you if you ask for it.

Re:Misunderstood?

[scared masked man]

It isn't just for dodgy photos: there is also the network analysis which Facebook does. For example, they look at all those address books people upload, and the photos you are tagged in, and find that you are X% likely to be a pot smoker and Y% likely to be a pirate and so on, and they can sell that information to a potential employer or your wife's divorce lawyer or whatever. All that can be generated without any involvement on your part, it just takes a few irresponsible friends.

Re:Misunderstood?

[AmiMoJo]

Not that is not true. FB/Google only have to remove data you uploaded to them. Links to other sites would have to be dealt with by contacting those sites directly.

The right only extends to data you yourself have uploaded. If people mirror it you can claim copyright infringement but, as is the case right now, would have to go after each copy individually. Hopefully Google et al will make it easy to do, but it is not a requirement.

Re:Misunderstood?

[AmiMoJo]

Slander/libel doesn't apply if the material is true, and embarrassing photos certainly are a true reflection of what happened in most cases.

The point here is to make it easier for citizens to have their personal data removed from databases. You can do it already, it just costs a lot of money and takes a lot of time as you go through the process of suing everyone.

Re:Misunderstood?

[Anonymous Coward]

Too much mudslinging means not enough information on why we should vote for them.

No wonder voter turnouts are low, when one side is telling why you shouldn't vote for the other, and the other side is telling why you shouldn't vote for the first.

The campaigns would be much better if everyone went out and told "we are going to do this, and here's why it's a good idea", rather than "they are going to do that, and here's why you shouldn't vote for them". It would allow people to choose based on who has the best ideas, rather than who is best at slinging mud.

Re:Misunderstood?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are deliberately being ridiculously pedatic about this in order to support your (i.e.Facebook's) bogus arguement that this is somehow 'impossible'.
In practice, the law would expect Facebook to take reasonable, practical steps to comply, and Facebook would find a way of doing it. No court would find FB liable based on your contrived example.

Are you paid by Facebook? If not, you probably should be.

Ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sort of like how setting "Do Not Track" by default is supposed to harm people? Poor advertisers. They might have to get real jobs instead of being online stalkers.

Re:Ok...

[Immerman]

DNT is a completely different issue - there's nothing saying the corporate stalkers have to pay any attention to your DNT setting, it's simply a request that they don't do so. As such if DNT is off by default then having it on means "I care about this issue enough to ask you politely not to track me", whereas a with default-on all it mean is "I'm using browser X", and how exactly does that help anyone?

Re:Ok...

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG! Someone is trying to DoS out servers... oh, wait, they have the DNT flag set in the UDP packets, so we can't log their IP address. I guess we'll never be able to block them.

Really, DNT is requesting the server to not log data that is willfully given by the browser. If you don't want to share that data, don't share it. Tell Firefox/Chrome/etc to stop sending that information. If that breaks stuff, then tough. DNT is like having your cake and eating it to.

In other news...

[sconeu]

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery

Re:In other news...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery

As we approach the 30th anniversary I propose we add these to the list:

Sharing is Stealing
Privacy is Terrorism

Re:In other news...

[Time_Ngler]

Considering that this bill requires the implementation one of the core ideas in the book, ie. the purposeful destruction and reshaping of information, it is quite rich that you would use it to try and rally support for the bill.

Re:In other news...

[AmiMoJo]

You have to differentiate between corporate databases and pretty much everything else. No-one is talking about burning books or erasing newspaper articles from history. All that is required here is that companies remove your data, i.e. data you own, from their databases.

Let's be clear. If you post a picture on Facebook and some journalist, even a lowly blogger, writes about it and reposts it on their site, this right won't help you. You can get Facebook to forget it, but not anyone else. In fact even if your friends post pictures of you being a douchbag at a party on their pages you can't get them removed either, because they are not your photos.

Re:In other news...

[NettiWelho]

Funny, this shouldnt be scored funny if it wasnt so true.

So by the same logic...

[Anonymous Coward]

The "right not to be punched in the face" would harm health?

Re:So by the same logic...

[Mitreya]

The "right not to be punched in the face" would harm health?

As they say,
"Fighting for peace" is roughly equivalent to "Screwing for virginity"

Re:So by the same logic...

[dywolf]

And "they" are idiots who know neither history, nor the reality of conflict.

All of history have proven there two basic routes to peace in the face of aggression:
1) When the invaders come, roll over and become their slaves.
2) When the invaders come, kill them all.

You only get to pick one.

Re:So by the same logic...

[Mitreya]

1) When the invaders come, roll over and become their slaves.
2) When the invaders come, kill them all.

I am almost certain that the saying refers to wars that are motivated as pre-emptive strikes.
Fighting back against invaders is more of a "fighting for freedom" than a "fighting for peace"

Re:So by the same logic...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually screwing for virginity works as long as you don't use contraceptives and keep screwing the same woman. After you get two daughters there are more virgins than at the time you started.

Re:So by the same logic...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it would. Imagine how much more damage you would be inflicted if you were stabbed or shot in the face instead? There is obviously no other way to interpret that.

Re:So by the same logic...

[Anonymous Coward]

All of history have proven there two basic routes to peace in the face of aggression:
1) When the invaders come, roll over and become their slaves.
2) When the invaders come, kill them all.

You only get to pick one.

You couldn't be more wrong, really.
History shows that many or most 'sucessful' invasions result (in time) in the invaders being assimilated by inter-marriage etc. and in time a hybrid culture forms. See: the entire history of the British Isles, for example.
Your simplistic views only apply if you take a *very* short term perspective.

Facebook on Privacy

[TheSpoom]

I think I'll take Facebook's views on privacy with a grain of salt.

Re:Okay, I'll say it

[Anonymous Coward]

And which ad firm do you work for again?

Problem solved

[golden age villain]

Facebook says the proposal would require social media sites to perform extra tracking to remove data which has been copied to other sites

Maybe they can start by not copying user data to other sites.

Re:Problem solved

[Anonymous Coward]

But then how else can they sell their product?

Re:Problem solved

[logjon]

Maybe users could start by not agreeing to have their data copied to other sites.

Re:Problem solved

[Anonymous Coward]

They could start charging people for the use of facebook.
With several hundred milion users that has got to be a pretty amount of £/$/€.

Re:Problem solved

[zlives]

given the choice/knowledge they probably would. however it is kinda foolish to think anything you put online is "private"

Re:Problem solved

[logjon]

however it is kinda foolish to think anything you put online is "private"

Exactly.

Re:Problem solved

[jklovanc]

One of the biggest gripes about social media sites is the difficulty in moving from provider to provider. Say someone wanted to move from Gmail to Facebook. This would require copying contacts from Gmail to Facebook.

So you copy your Gmail contacts to your Facebook account. You then want to remove those contacts you put into your Gmail account. Does Gmail now have to pass on that removal request to Facebook because they passed on the contact? if they don't then the contact is not completely deleted from the internet as it still exixts on another provider's system. If they do, then they have to keep a record of where all those contacts were exported to. Now it is possible to link a user's Gmail account to their Facebook account through the logging feature. This is what Google is talking about.

To delete records that have been copied one must retain a log to all those places where the data has been copied. This log can then be used to trace a person's activity and therefore a privacy concern.

Re:Problem solved

[jklovanc]

And completely lock users into Google sites so they can never transport their information to Facebook, etc. There has been a huge outcry about social sites not allowing data to be copied and now you are proposing that exact thing. Under your rules one could not copy one's own data from Gmail to Facebook even if one wanted to.

Re:Problem solved

[foniksonik]

Think of it this way. You send an email, it gets forwarded, then forwarded again, then posted on a forum, then tweeted.

You then tell the person you sent the email to to delete it and every copy that may have been made of it.

Is that reasonable? How could you do that and who gives you the right, especially when there are whole conversations tangentially related to that email that would become orphaned.

The same happens on Facebook. People post an image, it gets reposted elsewhere, comments are added to the reposted info. If the original poster wants it removed what happens to everyone else? Are their conversations about the image to be removed as well or do they just lose their subject matter or???

Re:Problem solved

[BitZtream]

You do realize you can download an XML
  File or two from Google with all your data, right?

Re:Problem solved

[BitZtream]

Google lets you download XML of all your crap. It's not hard to leave Google because of Google.

Try to d/l your posts from Facebook

Re:Problem solved

[logjon]

I think you've missed my point. You're agreeing to have these things copied to other sites just by signing up and putting them on the internet.

Re:Problem solved

[jklovanc]

That is my point. Are you now not copying data from Google to your site? Is that not "copying data to other sites"? Is that not what the OP has an issue with? Would that act of copying now have to be logged to comply with the data removal law? Could someone now look at that log and find where the data went?

Re:Problem solved

[Anonymous Coward]

Google lets you download XML of all your crap. It's not hard to leave Google because of Google.

Try to d/l your posts from Facebook

What is so hard about this?
http://www.facebook.com/help/131112897028467/

Re:Problem solved

[jklovanc]

I should have posted as a response to the parent and not your post

Re:Problem solved

[Obfuscant]

So you copy your Gmail contacts to your Facebook account. You then want to remove those contacts you put into your Gmail account. Does Gmail now have to pass on that removal request to Facebook because they passed on the contact?

Gmail didn't pass on the contacts, YOU did.

if they don't then the contact is not completely deleted from the internet as it still exixts on another provider's system.

Telling Facebook or gmail to actually delete information doesn't mean you're telling them to delete it from anyplace it might be on the Internet. It's telling them to delete it from gmail or facebook, or wherever they sent it.

This is not a complicated problem. And yet, Google/Gmail thinks it is. My idiot ISP has just handed all of their user's personal information over to Google by moving their email services to gmail. Gmail immediately sent out an email telling people they shouldn't delete their email when done with it, they should "archive" it. (Of coirse, they can't index and sort and make money from selling private data if you've deleted it.) And, in fact, now my mobile email clients actually DON'T delete email when I tell them to. A week ago, deleting an email meant it went away. Today, deleting an email after reading it leaves that email not only on the system but marks it as UNREAD. Fascinating.

To delete records that have been copied one must retain a log to all those places where the data has been copied.

Yes, I will keep a mental log of where I sent the contact data I downloaded from gmail to.

This log can then be used to trace a person's activity and therefore a privacy concern.

Me knowing where I copied my own data is not a privacy concern. But thanks for trying to whitewash facebook.

Re:Problem solved

[logjon]

I see; it makes much more sense as a response to that.

Re:Problem solved

[Obfuscant]

That is my point. Are you now not copying data from Google to your site? Is that not "copying data to other sites"?

It is YOU copying YOUR data to other sites.

Re:Problem solved

[Teun]

The law is clear, in your example Facebook is responsible for the data on their server and any place they shared it with, not for what you've done with it.

Why is this simple concept for some so hard to understand!

Re:Problem solved

[jklovanc]

What if You used an import feature on a new social site to import your data? It could be seen as Facebook giving your information to the new site. Would Facebook have to inform the new site that the original contact was deleted? This is a yes or no answer.

Re:Problem solved

[jklovanc]

If I logged onto a new social network site and used their system to transfer in my Facebook contacts would that be seen as Facebook sharing my data with the new site (even if I authorized it)?

Re:Problem solved

[jklovanc]

What if the copying is done by a program on the new site? The new site is doing the action and you are authorizing it.

Re:Problem solved

[Anonymous Coward]

I asked my e-mail service provider about this some month ago. ( I know that's not the same as your client, but still).
[...]
In short: if you move a message from the server to local storage and the
message has been removed from the server, it's removed. We don't keep
backups of mail.

Cheers!
-Pete

-- Pete S. Lavabit Support

Re:Problem solved

[Obfuscant]

What if You used an import feature on a new social site to import your data?

What if YOU moved your data? Did facebook move your data, or did you?

It could be seen as Facebook giving your information to the new site.

You're going to great lengths to absolve facebook of any responsibility for giving your information away. If YOU move your data someplace, YOU did it. Not facebook. If facebook hands your data over to others, THEY handed it over.

Would Facebook have to inform the new site that the original contact was deleted? This is a yes or no answer.

Why would facebook be required to tell someone YOU have given your information to that you've deleted it from facebook? No, you did not provide a "yes or no answer", you asked a question. The answer should be obvious.

Re:Problem solved

[Obfuscant]

What if the copying is done by a program on the new site? The new site is doing the action and you are authorizing it.

You keep asking the same question and then answering it in the same post. YOU moved the data. YOU gave it to the new site. YOU. Why is that such a hard concept for you to grasp?

Re:Problem solved

[Malc]

Yeah, exactly. I read it in a more negative way: they have no idea what they've copied to other sites, but they have copied something.

Re:Problem solved

[jklovanc]

Unless you picked up the electrons from the Google server and inserted it in the new system then the new system is actually doing the work and you are just authorizing it. That is where legalities come in. Did you move the information? No, you just pushed a button authorizing the system to move the information.

I am not trying to absolve anyone of anything. All I am trying to do is clarify an unintended consequences of having to trace information transfers. There are many apps out there that synchronize with Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook etc to provide the convenience of having all contacts in one place. Every time the synchronization adds a contact to the app instance there is a data transfer. If the law requires those transferred contacts to be removed then there must be a log of the transfer occurring. Since the log exists it can be read to find all devices that have been synchronized. An no, you did not do the sync, the app did.

Re:Problem solved

[Teun]

It would be your (indecent without permission of the owners) action to share, not Facebook's.
Don't make it unnecessarily complicated :)

Re:Problem solved

[jklovanc]

Does the law say that? If it does, please quote it.

Re:Problem solved

[jklovanc]

Did YOU pick up the electrons and move them? No. Therefore YOU didn't DO it. Therefore YOU AUTHORIZED a program to DO it for you. What happens when your smartphone periodically syncs with Gmail? Did YOU sync with Gmail? No, the app did. There is a huge difference between DOING and action and AUTHORIZING an action.

Re:Problem solved

[Obfuscant]

Unless you picked up the electrons from the Google server and inserted it in the new system then the new system is actually doing the work and you are just authorizing it.

YOU are ordering it to be done, not Facebook. You are doing it, using the software that, gasp, is available on the website.

Did you move the information? No,

Yes, you did. You made use of software that accomplished what you wanted done. That doesn't mean you didn't do it and are responsible for it happening.

An no, you did not do the sync, the app did.

"I didn't shoot the victim, your honor, the gun did. I just pulled the trigger after pointing it in his general direction." "I didn't download kiddie pr0n, your honor, I just clicked a few buttons and the web browser downloaded it." If YOU told the app to do it then YOU did it and are responsible for it, not facebook. Of course the software did the actual operation, but it was YOUR intention for it to happen, and YOU know it happened.

This law is intended to deal with the cases when you DID NOT do the copying and don't necessarily know it happened.

Re:Problem solved

[drinkypoo]

This law is intended to deal with the cases when you DID NOT do the copying and don't necessarily know it happened.

AFAICT it also covers the case where you were drunk and have remorse.

Re:Problem solved

[Anonymous Coward]

You're agreeing** to...

** Agreement likely to be fully or partially invalid in EU due to legal overrides.

beer

[Anonymous Coward]

The right to be forgotten comes in 40 ounces in several varieties.

Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Adrian Lopez]

To grant one person the right to be forgotten is to deprive another of the right to remember. The sharing of information once legitimately published cannot become illegitimate just because the person involved doesn't want it to be known. The "right" to be forgotten is a form of censorship and has nothing at all to do with privacy.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Millennium]

This. A "right to be forgotten" implies silencing those who do not want a person's actions forgotten, and this must not be allowed.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Hatta]

Thank you. This is the only sensible position I've seen on this subject. If you're concerned about what Facebook will do with information concerning you (note: not "your" information), then don't give it to them.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Desler]

But what if you never gave it to them?

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[zlives]

interesting... never thought about it from that viewpoint, and yet strangely i agree with the statement you make. The more i think about it... i can;t come up with a counter that seems logical.
some one else with bigger brains must help.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[dywolf]

We're not talking about criminal records or warcrimes here.
We are talking about being tracked and datamined, for profit.

This is not a form of censorship.

Facebooks right to know everything about and and make money off it does not carry more weight than my right to be left alone and not be tracked and not be datamined.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

Ridiculous. A corporation doesn't remember. Hard drives do not remember. The first amendment was not designed to protect commercial speech and the Supreme Court has given such speech less protection.

Oh and by the way this is the EU not America.

Out of all the comments, how did this get rated so highly?

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Mitreya]

This is the only sensible position I've seen on this subject. If you're concerned about what Facebook will do with information concerning you (note: not "your" information), then don't give it to them.

I respectfully disagree. The information is mine (posts are copyrighted, surely?) and there should be some degree of control over that information. By that logic --
"if you are concerned with what Google may do with your emails, don't open a Gmail account".
"If you are concerned with what a physician may do with your medical history, don't go to a doctor"
"If you are concerned with what bank may do with your money, do not give bank any of your money"

Also, I am concerned about what other users give to facebook about me. Sometimes simply creating the account is enough to give away a crapload of information. I never understood people who have the time to go through and mark things like "I know this person because I worked with them at X" on Facebook. They are literally working for Facebook with no benefit to them.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

So you agree with Eric Schmidt's take on the subject ?

"if you don’t have anything to hide, you have nothing to fear"

I'm feeling like there is a huge discrepancy between the way Americans see privacy and the way European sees it which would explain these kind of silly (disclaimer: I'm European) statements.

To paraphrase: maybe you misunderstood what "privacy" is about ?

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[dywolf]

To grant one person the right to not be punched is to deprive another of the right to punch.
Who's rights are more important? The puncher, or the punchee?
Your right to remember me is secondary to my right to not be remembered.

We arent talking about censorship. We are talking about a company datamining my every detail, for profit. So they can market things to me, and sell that info to other people to market things to me. They are essentially selling "me", against my wishes, and with no benefit to myself.

When done to one's physical person its called slavery.
But when done to one's personal information its legal marketing for which one gets absolute zero recompense, and we're supposed to just allow cause its supposedly some form of censorship? Bull.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

To grant one person the right to be forgotten is to deprive another of the right to remember. The sharing of information once legitimately published cannot become illegitimate just because the person involved doesn't want it to be known. The "right" to be forgotten is a form of censorship and has nothing at all to do with privacy.

Bullshit

There is no "right to be forgotten" here. Everything that has been published will probably be cached somewhere and available to anyone who copied (remembered) it. You cannot unring that bell.

The privacy right is about not being actively published anymore (or not allowing others to publish what they want about you). Otherwise, by your logic, when Myspace shuts down their pages, they exercised terrible censorship by "forgetting" user's pages.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[rmstar]

The "right" to be forgotten is a form of censorship and has nothing at all to do with privacy.

Yes, it is censorship, but i disagree with your claim that it has nothing to do with priavacy. In a sense, things like this highlight the fact that censorship sometimes is a good thing.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

This, it is blatant censorship by rich people.
We have seen this all too often in the UK with these injunctions and super-injunctions recently. It is absolute bullshit of the highest order.

The only legit right to be forgotten is in the case of identity changing for the sake of protecting people. But those are a very strict case-by-case basis anyway.

You post anything with your public identity in the public world, you deal with the consequences. Period.
Teach people the responsibilities of having an identity in school. Oh, wait, that would make smart people, can't do that can we?
If we have people wanting their privacy, people will want more and more, they will demand more rights, question things more, oh god the inhumanity!

However, Facebook are still beating around the bush when it comes to this. They just want to avoid dealing with it so make up any old crap they can come out with.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[LordArgon]

I'm not sure why you're phrasing this in terms of rights. Facebook doesn't have a "right" to track you, but it is part of their business model and user agreement. You agree to be tracked when you use their service. By extension, you don't have a "right" not to be tracked.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

The information is mine (posts are copyrighted, surely?)

You agree to give Facebook an unlimited, global and royalty-free license on any content you post to their site. So, while, yes, you technically own the information you agree to let them use it however they want. You also agree that the way to remove this license is to delete the content off the relevant post yourself.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[mark-t]

Then why would you need them to forget it?

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Hey_bob]

    Would choosing to delete/close my account on facebook (or whatever other site) violate the same"right to remember"? How about just deleting all the posts I ever made? The contents of my posts wouldn't be available to others in much the same way.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[mark-t]

Also, I am concerned about what other users give to facebook about me.

If other people disrespect your privacy by freely giving details about you to facebook, that's an issue between you and those people, not you and facebook.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[TFAFalcon]

You are free to remember, you just can't keep records.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Obfuscant]

Then why would you need them to forget it?

You buy something from me online using your credit card. I post that information to Facebook. Or maybe you go on vacation and you tell your neighbor you're going away and ask him to watch your house for you. He is an avid facebooker and posts several status updates for himself that says things like "just checkin out my pal mark-t's house for him while he's out of town for three weeks..."

Do you now see why you might have a need for Facebook to forget something that you didn't post there?

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly is it censorship if I wish that a site doesn't publish where I live, where I work, who are my dearest family members, and how much I earn?

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[hawkinspeter]

When someone else posts a photo of you in a compromising scenario and tags you in it.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Obfuscant]

If other people disrespect your privacy by freely giving details about you to facebook, that's an issue between you and those people, not you and facebook.

And requiring facebook to delete that information when you tell them to is an issue between you and facebook.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[gman003]

The "right" to be forgotten is a form of censorship and has nothing at all to do with privacy.

I think you are both right and wrong on this. It depends on how you implement this "right".

The way I originally heard it, the "right" was essentially "if I ask for something I uploaded to be taken down and deleted, it has to be taken down and deleted". If one quits Facebook and deletes their profile, it should actually be deleted. This I completely support, because while it's technically censorship, it is in the hand of the user and creator of the content, not in someone else's hands. And if someone happened to save that data and re-uploads it, that's governed by libel/slander laws.

If, however, the "right" is "I can demand anything even loosely connected to me be removed from any site", then it's basically the DMCA on an even worse level. I can't support that, because even though I can see good intentions behind it, the level of abuse it's going to cause is enormous. It would dwarf the level of abuse the DMCA gets.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

This. Very much this.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Millennium]

We're not talking about criminal records or warcrimes here.
We are talking about being tracked and datamined, for profit.

How do you legally distinguish between them?

Facebooks right to know everything about and and make money off it does not carry more weight than my right to be left alone and not be tracked and not be datamined.

Neither is a right. You agreed to be tracked when you signed up for Facebook. If you don't like it, then don't use Facebook.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

The sharing of information once legitimately published cannot become illegitimate just because the person involved doesn't want it to be known

This is not necessarily a relevant argument to the present discussion. You're assuming that Facebook is "publishing" your information. It wouldn't make sense for a journalist to demand that a company to recall all copies of a newspaper, or for author to try to order all copies of a book to be returned and destroyed.

But that's based on a misleading analogy. I think most people who are not selling stuff on Facebook think of it more like space on a public "bulletin board," where you can post some stuff and others can see it. In that case, it would seem rather crazy to say "sorry, you can't take your poster down from the board... everyone else has the right to view your poster forever."

Which analogy holds really depends on who "owns" the information. If I own the information, my rights to take it down come first. If Facebook owns the information, they get to decide how it's disseminated. What the EU is trying to do is clarify particular ownership rights for information. The right of the public to read "legitimately published" material in perpetuity is nonsense and irrelevant. If THEY keep an archive of the information, they can read it in the future, but the idea that this obligates Facebook or its users to distribute stuff in perpetuity is ridiculous.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Hatta]

Then someone else did. So what? If you can't keep your secrets, that's your problem. It's not my job to keep your secrets for you.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Hatta]

The information is mine (posts are copyrighted, surely?)

Copyright is not a fundamental right either. It is an unjust violation of our fundamental rights to free speech and our property rights. The very concept of ownership can only be meaningfully applied to rivalrous goods. You cannot own information, ever.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Hatta]

No, I'd say there's a lot to fear even if you have nothing to hide. So hide your nothing, and don't depend on others to hide it for you.

I'm feeling like there is a huge discrepancy between the way Americans see freedom and the way Europeans see it. Taking away the rights of others does not make me more free.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Hatta]

I don't see how you can justify censoring your neighbor under those circumstances. I have every right to observe and make those observations public. This is what freedom of thought is all about.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Hatta]

Actually, requiring facebook to delete that information is an issue between you and the fundamental right to freedom of speech.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

To grant one person the right to be forgotten is to deprive another of the right to remember.

This is not about personal relationships, and having *your own* profile removed from Facebook has nothing to do with censorship.

The EU perspective is that you don't give away personal data to every company you interact with, it remains yours, you entrust the company with it, and they have to take good care of it. A company already is required to use that data only for the purpose for which it was collected. If I pay for my shopping with a debit card the supermarket can only legally use the debit card information to process the payment, they are not allowed to use it for tracking my shopping habits or sell it to the highest bidder. If you ask a company what information they have about you they are already legally required to tell you. The guy who started Europe vs. Facebook used excactly that right and was sent a PDF with over 1200 pages of information on him if I remember correctly. Giving people the right to have errors corrected and to delete information they don't want the other party to have is the next step on the same path. If, as the EU does, you consider information about a person to be owned by that person it's perfectly reasonable. Don't forget press freedom exists in Europe too, I can't imagine this will trump the right of a newspaper or news website to report on people. I see no censorship.

This attitude is radically different from the way these things are seen in the US. The US point of view strikes me, as a European, to be a greedy, selfish and agressive "everything I touch is MINE MINE MINE" type of attitude. Please be a bit more civilised than that. I'm pretty sure these regulations wouldn't have happened if corporations collecting personal data had been more respectful towards the people they collect data about.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Hatta]

Who's rights are more important? The puncher, or the punchee?
Your right to remember me is secondary to my right to not be remembered

The party being passive gets precedence. Forcing me to delete information is not a passive act on your part. You are advocating the threat of government violence to get someone to delete information. That is much more analogous to punching than sitting quietly minding your own business.

We arent talking about censorship.

Yes, yes you are. Any time the government prohibits the transfer of any information it is censorship. You might argue that it is censorship that is worth the risk to you, but it is dishonest to call it anything other than censorship.

When done to one's physical person its called slavery.

Uh, wow. False equivalence much? Give me a fucking break.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you misunderstand the concept of the proposal taking the 'title' of it too literally: it's the right to take away your personal data for LATER use. That means, if I cancel a service, like closing a facebook or google account, they should erase my data from the databases they would use for ads or sell to other people.

To make an analogy, it complies with the idea an employer can sell employee's data, or like any company can't use a service after contract is over. At the same time, is like publishers can't make new copies of books without author's agreement; for that the author must SPECIFICALLY make a tranference of publishing rights of said (as an example of this, many publishers make this explicit on writing contests).

It's not saying "people should burn all copies of a newspaper if the reporters takes back a story and never quote it", it's "don't print new copies of his story if he asks so".

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Hatta]

Which analogy holds really depends on who "owns" the information.

The problem is that information is not something that can be owned. It's a completely nonsensical idea with all sorts of problems, which we are seeing played out here.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Hatta]

Where do you derive a right to not be tracked? Is it any more complicated than "I don't like the idea of being tracked, so I'm going to claim I have a right to not be tracked."?

You say you have a right to be left alone? Well so do I. Where do you get the right to tell me to delete information that I've recorded? By doing so it is YOU who are violating my right to be left alone.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Obfuscant]

I don't see how you can justify censoring your neighbor under those circumstances.

I can, even if it is a very loong stretch to call it censoring. It isn't his information. He had no right to post about you.

I have every right to observe and make those observations public.

Assuming for the sake of argument that you are right (which I don't agree that you are), the situations I presented are not you observing something, it is something you were told, both the credit card information, or the fact that the house owner was out of town for three weeks.

This is what freedom of thought is all about.

Freedom of thought is not freedom to post every piece of information about other people whereever and whenever you feel like it.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Teun]

In the EU Facebook or equivalent are not persons with a right to their memories.

All the law requires is they delete any and all information about the individual that requests it.

Because such data belongs exclusively to the individual.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Obfuscant]

Actually, requiring facebook to delete that information is an issue between you and the fundamental right to freedom of speech.

Are you actually arguing that corporations are people and have the same rights, like the right to free speech?

Are you arguing that a corporation from which you have purchased a product using a credit card has the right of free speech to post that credit card data and data about the transaction online for everyone else to see? Are you arguing that your doctor has the right to free speech, too, and can post details of your most recent office visit online, and you have no right to have it taken down?

No, sorry, the "right of free speech" does not mean you have the right to speechify other people's information whenever or wherever you want.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

Well we all depend on other to hide it for us, whether we want it or not. Most of my friends know unimportant and harmless things about me that I do not want spread on the Internet (for no other reason than "it's private"), I rely on them to just shut up.

Example at hand: I go to a private dinner with some friends (not a public party or something with dozens of people, just a small dinner), a quite innocent picture of me is taken by someone, and put on Facebook a few hours later, because the friend is uneducated, doesn't know that I don't want this. I'm not on Facebook so I don't even know about it.

Some time later, I discover the picture, by chance. I don't want it to be there, please Facebook, remove it and forget about me. No no no sir, this would harm your privacy and take away freedom from the guy who posted it. Can't do that, sorry, you're on the Internet now. Forever.

Yes I'm taking away something from the guy who posted the picture, but I don't call it freedom.

Besides I want my "freedom" of being unknown of Facebook and other to be respected. Putting my picture or any kind of personal info there is taking away my right to be ignored/forgotten/whatever.

But I think this cultural discrepancy is very fundamental and strong. It is the exact same thing that makes us European go to some extreme like banning a stupid book (instead of educating people about its idiocy) which is something that sounds like heresy to Americans. And unfortunately there is no solution. Yet.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Bengie]

We're not talking about criminal records or warcrimes here.

Yes we are. The example the EU even uses is someone commits a crime, serves their time, and no longer wants to be associated with that crime. That person can request Google, FB, blogs, etc to have to remove any data pertaining to that person having committed that crime. Also, these sites must actively screen new content that may contain this information.

Essentially you have a black-list that will only grow, plus the same content may be worded many different ways. It will be the cat-and-mouse game the YouTube is playing with copyrighted content; except much easier for YouTube to get punished.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless the Facebook user agreement has conditions that aren't legal. Contracts don't override every law. If you would hire me to kill you it would still be murder if I did it, contract or no contract. In the EU personal data is considered to be practically owned by the person the data is about. Don't expect you can override all consequences of that in a contract.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Hatta]

No, not at all. Corporations do not exist and have no natural rights. They can be regulated as the people see fit. If the people decide they are better off with restricted corporate speech that's fine.

If you want to make that argument then make it. You can make that argument without inventing a fictional right to be forgotten that is in direct conflict with free speech.

No, sorry, the "right of free speech" does not mean you have the right to speechify other people's information whenever or wherever you want.

Yes, yes it does. My brain is my own and I can divulge the contents however I see fit. You have absolutely no rights to the contents of my brain or to my papers or effects. That includes forcing me to delete or forget any information.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

information concerning you (note: not "your" information)

Note: this is about Europe, not the US. Information about you is practically owned by you in the EU. The proposed regulations are a logical consequence of that way of looking at it.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, moron, the "owns" is in quotation marks for a reason. I'm not saying that ANY FUCKING PERSON ACTUALLY OWNS THE INFORMATION. I'm talking about the right of a person to control their own "bulletin board" and what is displayed on it.

I "own" the stuff displayed on a private bulletin board -- not as, I have the right to copyright it or demand that people do whatever the fuck with it, but as in "I can take it off my board and unless you have it fucking archived somewhere, too fucking bad."

What we're talking about in terms of "ownership" here is whether you have the right to ask Facebook to take something off of their bulletin board about you. I apologize if I didn't make myself absolutely fucking clear to free information morons like yourself that I wasn't actually implying restrictions on the information... I was talking about restrictions ("ownership") on the information DISPLAYED ON YOUR BULLETIN BOARD. Which should have been clear to any idiot who actually took time to think about what I was saying.

But, I guess, to some people whenever they see "information" and "owns" in the same sentence, they just have to start ranting about something, even if irrelevant!!

I will restate my conclusion one final time: no one has any fucking right to demand that you maintain access to your information in perpetuity. If they've already copied it and archived it, that's their business -- but they don't have any right to demand Facebook or you keep it available FOREVER just because they might want to someday read it.

FUCK YOU!

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Hatta]

I can, even if it is a very loong stretch to call it censoring.

It's not a long stretch at all. It is plainly censorship, by definition.

It isn't his information. He had no right to post about you.

If it's in my brain, it's my information. Arguing that you own information in my brain is an enormous overreach. The idea that you have rights over my brain is completley nonsensical.

the situations I presented are not you observing something, it is something you were told

Listening to something I am told is a form of observation.

Freedom of thought is not freedom to post every piece of information about other people whereever and whenever you feel like it.

Yes, yes it is. You just don't really respect free thought.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[miltonw]

Misrepresenting what the debate is about is a Strawman argument. An illogic.
- Giving out credit card information is already against the law. The proposed "right to be forgotten" is not about that.
- Spying on people's private lives is already against the law. Therefore the proposed "right to be forgotten" isn't needed to fight that situation.
- Doctors are required, by law to keep patient information confidential. Therefore the proposed "right to be forgotten" is not applicable there either.

Your examples are not examples that require this new "right to be forgotten". Your examples for why we need this new "right" are already handled by existing laws.

All your arguments don't apply. You certainly "win" against your strawman opponent, but in the real world, you're not making headway.

Why don't you talk about real situations not already covered by existing laws, that require this new "right"? Hmmm?

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

You got to be kidding. Forcing a corporation to delete data is violence? Really? In what world do you live where corporations can be threatened with physical violence? We don't even have the corporate equivalent of the death penalty. Fines for violating laws have less teeth than speeding tickets.

Oh and there are things called the privacy laws that prevent corporations from selling certain data. The unfortunate fact is that you must opt in to gain these protections in America. What, did you think your bank could sell your credit crad data willy nilly?

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Hatta]

Some time later, I discover the picture, by chance. I don't want it to be there, please Facebook, remove it and forget about me. No no no sir, this would harm your privacy and take away freedom from the guy who posted it. Can't do that, sorry, you're on the Internet now. Forever.

Yes I'm taking away something from the guy who posted the picture, but I don't call it freedom.

If you're using the threat of government violence to enforce the removal of information from some third party's property then yes you are taking away their freedom. You might not like to call it that, but that is what you are doing.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

You recognise the disrespect a person has for another human and not the disrespect a corporation has for that same human? Wierd.

While I agree that the people who give information about others to Facebook are doing something wrong, there is an important difference: those people are probably just stupid or naive; Facebook is a huge corporation that processes data professionally. To me that implies a much higher level of accountability for Facebook. And unless you have your friends, coworkers, acquaintances and basically everyone you meet sign a EULA for interacting with you you don't have a leg to stand on. And if those other people can't have Facebook remove the data on you resolving the issue with the other person has no effect on what Facebook has.

You actually give a good argument in favour of the proposed regulation.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me repost it--how to delete a Facebook account:

1. Log into your Facebook account
2. http://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account
3. Follow all prompts to delete the account--one of them requires password and captcha

The account will be scheduled for deletion.

Do this now before they disable account deletion.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Hatta]

It's a proxy for violence. You don't think you are being violently aggressed upon when you are issued a speeding ticket? Just try refusing to pay and you will see how violent the government really is.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Obfuscant]

It's not a long stretch at all. It is plainly censorship, by definition.

Nonsense. Only by using a very bastardized meaningless definition.

If it's in my brain, it's my information.

More nonsense. It may be "in your brain", but it is not information about you and it is not your information to disseminate in any way you want to.

The idea that you have rights over my brain is completley nonsensical.

The idea that you have the right to publicly distribute every piece of information you have "in your brain" is nonsensical.

Listening to something I am told is a form of observation.

You're a nut. A word-gamer nut.

You just don't really respect free thought.

You have the right to think whatever you want about information in whatever it is you call "your brain". You do not have the right to distribute information about other people wherever and whenever you wish just because you think it is "in your brain".

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[mark-t]

What business did somebody else have posting it there? Should they not have been required to divulge that they were going to do that before you were involved in the transaction in the first place?

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[miltonw]

First, posting a person's credit card information is against the law. You don't need this proposed "right" to get such information removed.

Second, there is no law, no "right", no rule that will ever protect us from stupidity. You've got "friends" who post that you're out of town for three weeks? Sorry, by the time you find this out, it's too late for this silly "right to be forgotten" to protect you.

You are not making a good case here.

No, I don't see how this "right to be forgotten" is really needed.

In real life, no one gets the right to be forgotten. You were stupid? You were crazy? You were drunk? Sorry, the people around you will never forget that party. That's life.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Seeteufel]

Continental Europe has author's right, not copyright. Authors rights are a devine right of authors. In fact the Berne Convention which sets the international standard takes the same view, even if the anglosaxon world (UK&US&...) don't get what they signed up to.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Obfuscant]

- Giving out credit card information is already against the law. The proposed "right to be forgotten" is not about that.

If I view your credit card while it is sitting on a table, it is something I have observed. What law keeps me from making that information public? I've entered into no agreement with you or your credit card vendor to keep anything private.

Spying on people's private lives is already against the law.

How is someone telling their neighbor that they will be out of town for three weeks and asking them to keep an eye on their house "spying"?

Doctors are required, by law to keep patient information confidential.

Again, there is this alleged right to post things that one has observed. My doctor observed my medical condition, he has the right to free thought and speech. I'm not making this up, it is part of the argument being used against the concept of the "right to be forgotten".

Why don't you talk about real situations not already covered by existing laws, that require this new "right"? Hmmm?

Been there, done that. Your neighbor who posts the fact that you are out of town for three weeks is a very good, and quite realistic, example of when such a need exists. There was no "spying" involved, no legal prohibition against such a posting.

If you think something like that wouldn't happen, I can tell you for a fact that it does. Not facebook specifically, but a personal example. I told someone who actually had a need to know that I was going to be out of town for a week, who should have known that such information was not for public dissemination, and it was not ten minutes later that this fact was being transmitted over the radio to a large group of people. Are you arguing that there is some law that I could apply to this situation and have this person arrested and put in jail?

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you actually arguing that corporations are people and have the same rights, like the right to free speech?

No, he doesn't seem to be. He's talking about the fundamental freedom of speech of the neighbor. I don't think he's talking about the credit card example specifically, because quite honestly it's a shitty example.

Context:

Or maybe you go on vacation and you tell your neighbor you're going away and ask him to watch your house for you. He is an avid facebooker and posts several status updates for himself that says things like "just checkin out my pal mark-t's house for him while he's out of town for three weeks..."

Are you arguing that a corporation from which you have purchased a product using a credit card has the right of free speech to post that credit card data and data about the transaction online for everyone else to see?

Unless the law prevents them from doing so, then yes they have the right do to it.

Are you arguing that your doctor has the right to free speech, too, and can post details of your most recent office visit online, and you have no right to have it taken down?

As far as I can tell, that'd be against the law even in the US. So no, the doctor's speech is not protected there. Facebook should be more than willing to remove that information.

No, sorry, the "right of free speech" does not mean you have the right to speechify other people's information whenever or wherever you want.

No, but it does mean that you can't decide to censor everyone because you're a shameful moron who doesn't want his stupid actions known.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[miltonw]

There are lots of laws that cover situations you seem to be concerned with. Lots of laws.

This stupid "right to be forgotten" isn't needed for any situation already covered by existing laws.

So what's its primary purpose? It allows stupid people who did stupid things, posted stupid videos, posted stupid pictures ... it allows them to "never mind, erase-erase-erase" all that stupidity. (Of course, nothing actually can be "erased" from the Internet).

Understand: This "right" is about stuff that was legally obtained and legally posted. If any of it was illegal, it could be removed using existing laws.

Everything this silly "right" is about is legal postings that the person just "doesn't like".

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[QRDeNameland]

If you don't like it, then don't use Facebook.

Exactly.

I've had the "Why aren't you on Facebook?" discussion with family and friends so many times that it has been boiled down to one sound byte: "You are not their customer, you are their product." And while at the time they will simply reply with "Oh, well, that doesn't really bother me", almost invariably when some issue related to Facebook user policies surfaces, there is some level of modest complaint that will directly or subtly imply that Facebook somehow owes them something as a user. They say the words that they understand Facebook's business model, but clearly there's a level of disconnect that they somehow still think they are the customer. And, in general I'm talking about people that I otherwise consider to be smart and thoughtful.

Caveat subscriptor.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Hatta]

My brain is my property. My physical property. Information physically encoded in its synapses is my property, to the maximum extent that information can legitimately be owned. Our rights to free speech and free thought stem from our property interests in our own bodies (and therefore minds).

You can assert time and time again that you have the right to control what I do with my own brain. But you haven't given any sort of justification as to why you have that right. The closest you've come is saying that you don't like what I might do with my brain.

So put up or shut up. Explain to me where this right derives from. I don't think you can.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[miltonw]

Would choosing to delete/close my account on facebook (or whatever other site) violate the same"right to remember"?

Obviously not.

How about just deleting all the posts I ever made? The contents of my posts wouldn't be available to others in much the same way.

That's like saying that you choosing not to speak is identical to you preventing someone else from speaking. You actually think those things are equivalent?

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Obfuscant]

First, posting a person's credit card information is against the law.

First, "citation required".

Second, it may be against the law for them to post it, but where is the law that says that Facebook (or any other social website) must take it down upon your request?

And third, so what? You can't think of any other kind of information that isn't "illegal" to post that you should have the right to control when others post it without your permission?

Second, there is no law, no "right", no rule that will ever protect us from stupidity.

The right to be forgotten doesn't mean there is some prohibition on stupidity, only an ability to mitigate the problem when it occurs. If you are arguing that we can have no laws unless they are foolproof prophylactics, then we can have no laws at all. If laws were absolute protection from that which they prohibit, we'd need neither police nor courts as there would be no crime. "I need not lock my front door, as there are clear laws against someone entering my house and taking my property, and this law certainly prevents that from happening."

Sorry, by the time you find this out, it's too late for this silly "right to be forgotten" to protect you.

Hardly. When I get the notification of their status update within seconds after they have posted it, then I can stop anyone who isn't immediately notified from finding out by having it taken down immediately. If someone is browsing facebook looking for such information, unless he's there in the short time it is up, he won't know it. That's protection from him.

Sorry, the people around you will never forget that party.

Keeping people who are direct participants in something from knowing about it is significantly different than keeping arbitrary people from knowing. The right to be forgotten doesn't need to cover every recipient of a bit of information for it to be valuable. As in, you cannot tell the vendor you just gave your credit card to when you paid for dinner to forget that information (as a way of avoiding being charged), but you certainly have the right to tell Facebook to take that information down should that vendor post it publicly.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Hatta]

Authors rights are also unjust violations of the right to free speech and property rights. They are wrong for the same reason this right to be forgotten is. Real rights are about being free from coersion, not coercing others to do our will.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[miltonw]

Because such data belongs exclusively to the individual.

No it doesn't. Don't be silly. You do not own "every bit of information about you". The concept is absurd. If the data was legally obtained then it is simply facts. In addition, public information is just that: "public information".

Information about you that can be legally obtained by anyone is not yours to delete. There are often very good reasons why public information about people is available to the public.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Obfuscant]

You can assert time and time again that you have the right to control what I do with my own brain.

I have made no such assertion.

So put up or shut up. Explain to me where this right derives from.

You claim the right to do with your brain, as your own property, what you wish, yet you ignore the right of others to control that which they own -- the information about them that you have managed to "observe". And by "observe", you really mean "was given to you for specific uses".

Your argument would make it perfectly acceptable for me, as an employee of PayPal, for example, to post every bit of credit card information that I "observe". That includes your credit card information, should I happen to observe it. Or your bank account information, should I happen to work at your bank. Or your medical information, should I happen to observe it. This would all be my "freedom of thought" in action, using what I have "observed".

Since such actions are clearly not acceptable, even assuming your perfect right of "free thought" that maps into the perfect right of "free speech" (two different things in the real world), then it must be your argument that fails. Because such actions are so patently unacceptable and yet to trivially derived from your position, I can only assume that your argument is based on a desire to play meaningless word games, or a desire to troll.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[miltonw]

Been there, done that. Your neighbor who posts the fact that you are out of town for three weeks is a very good, and quite realistic, example of when such a need exists. There was no "spying" involved, no legal prohibition against such a posting.

If you think something like that wouldn't happen, I can tell you for a fact that it does. Not facebook specifically, but a personal example. I told someone who actually had a need to know that I was going to be out of town for a week, who should have known that such information was not for public dissemination, and it was not ten minutes later that this fact was being transmitted over the radio to a large group of people. Are you arguing that there is some law that I could apply to this situation and have this person arrested and put in jail?

Obviously not. Like I said there are no laws, no "rights", no rules that will protect you from stupidity -- not even this stupid "right" to be forgotten. Sorry, no help for you when it comes to stupidity. Deal with it.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Hatta]

I have made no such assertion.

You lie. Forcing me to forget is demanding control of my brain.

Your argument would make it perfectly acceptable for me, as an employee of PayPal, for example, to post every bit of credit card information that I "observe". That includes your credit card information, should I happen to observe it. Or your bank account information, should I happen to work at your bank. Or your medical information, should I happen to observe it. This would all be my "freedom of thought" in action, using what I have "observed".

Yes, that is all completely acceptable. It is only problematic when that information is used for fraudulent purposes. Then, and only then, does it become negligence.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Hey_bob]

That's like saying that you choosing not to speak is identical to you preventing someone else from speaking. You actually think those things are equivalent?

Sorry, I have the derp it seems. I'm not sure how you got to that. If deleting posts or an account is akin to me not speaking.. I don't understand how that would prevent someone else from speaking? Do you mean any comments that other people may have made, in reply? (Not trying to be dense.. please do explain!!)

I'm trying to compare choosing to manually delete posts made to facebook (which fb retains for whatever reason), with doing the same thing but making facebook not retain the information (one interpretation of this "right to forget"). Aside from where people may have replied or commented on things, I'm not sure how that's affecting someone else. I should probably read some more comments, they might answer that.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[QRDeNameland]

After reading the Hatta/Obfuscant exchange, I think this post sheds some light on the issue.

Hatta is right that you have a free speech right to express the knowledge that your neighbor is on vacation. However, if you expressed that knowledge to a known burglar, you could also be criminally liable for aiding and abetting, and even if you passed the information on innocently, you could at least theoretically be civilly liable for negligence in passing on such information...all without needing to violate your right to free speech.

But this old joke pretty much sums up why there's no "right to be forgotten".

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Seeteufel]

Essentially rights are about coersion. The right to property is a right to exclude others. The right of free speech is a right where the state protects you against the fist of other members of society.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[miltonw]

I was not clear. The action of you choosing to delete your account or your post is not the same thing as you forcing Facebook to delete someone else's posts (which happen to include your name, etc.).

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

To grant one person the right to be forgotten is to deprive another of the right to remember.

A classic false dichotomy.

You're claiming that we can either have the right to be forgotten OR the right to free speech, but not both. Only a pathetically unimaginative mind would not be able to imagine that both rights could coexist.

And your so-called "right to remember" is actually the "right" to remember someone else's personal data that they don't authorize you to remember. That's a novel idea for a brand new "right" that very few people (except the Zuckerbergs of the world) would ever support.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Ian Alexander]

Facebook is currently suspected of building shadow profiles of people who have never registered for Facebook... so it may be that you don't have to give them your information for them to get ahold of it.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[mark-t]

Doesn't facebook allow you to specifiy that you have to approve tags with your name before they are publicly visible?

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right in that privacy has nothing to do with it but that's it.

We're not talking about asking people to forget or remember, we're talking about computers. We're not talking about asking people to forget, we're asking computers to forget. If people happen to forget some random fact after some period of time then how is it the responsibility of the supplier of that fact? In short, it is not.

If your friend(s) write something on facebook that you want to remember then you should make a copy of that information elsewhere, lest your access to facebook be suspended. If your friend shares something with you and you don't take responsibility for remembering it, why should facebook do that for you?

The contract users have with facebook is between themselves and facebook, not between themselves and their friends.

To use another example...

If I set up my own web page and put information on it and tell my friend about it, am I thereafter obliged to keep that web page there for all eternity for the benefit of allowing that friend to have perpetual access to it? No. If I remove that web page and said friend has forgotten its contents then too bad. This is not censorship and nor does it have anything to do with privacy. I am not depriving them of the right to remember.

This is not about depriving people the right to remember, it is about enforcing the remembering to be human.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

The right to be forgotten sounds like the morning-after pill for druken trolls on a rampage.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

You agree to be tracked when you use their service.

Yes, and you should also be provided with the ability to terminate that agreement.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Obfuscant]

You lie. Forcing me to forget is demanding control of my brain.

You are a troll. Nobody said anything about forcing you to forget anything. The issue is about forcing facebook etc. to delete information from their systems.

Yes, that is all completely acceptable.

Now you've proven beyond all doubt that you are a troll.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Obfuscant]

There are lots of laws that cover situations you seem to be concerned with. Lots of laws.

First of all, I'm not concerned about these situations, I simply provided them as an example in response to a request for examples. Most people would be concerned if their credit or medical status appeared online, or if the fact their house was unoccupied for a long period of time was announced to everyone.

Second, I'll take this as an admission that you cannot provide any citation to back up your claim that these are all illegal. You cannot seriously think that there is a law that would prevent me from posting something like "I'm looking after miltonw's house while he's out of town for a month", or that there is a law that would stop me from saying "I saw miltonw at the pharmacy and I overheard him asking about treatments for the clap".

You seem to be reacting to some very specific examples and overlooking the very broad nature of the issues behind them, claiming they are illegal, and yet unable to cite any laws that would make it so. Or citing any laws that would force the deletion of material that someone else posted illegally. Were there such laws, they would have been used to deal with the wikileaks people, since much of what they leak was obtained illegally. The owner of the original information would simply say "remove it" and it would be gone. Apparently the law is not as clear as you seem to think on this, especially when dealing with third parties.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Hey_bob]

Ooooh! Ok. Thank you for the clarification. When you put it that way, the argument against this makes more sense. I figured for anything I was tagged in, that they'd just remove the tag/link from them.. I hadn't thought they'd remove those posts entirely.

Thank you for explaining your side better, I appreciate it.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you arguing that there is some law that I could apply to this situation and have this person arrested and put in jail?

No, we're arguing that the real world isn't a magical place where everything people says can be controlled by you. And thank god, because I'd hate to live in a world where I can't say anything that might bother even a single person on the internet.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Obfuscant]

Hatta is right that you have a free speech right to express the knowledge that your neighbor is on vacation.

And the neighbor has the right to say "that is not information I want made public, I did not make it public, and I want it removed from facebook, etc." He should be in control of his information.

Isn't it a bit hypocritical to complain that Facebook is busy scraping their user's data for their own use and then say that someone has no right to control information about themselves? Either you have the right not to have Facebook controlling your data or you don't.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Obfuscant]

Like I said there are no laws, no "rights", no rules that will protect you from stupidity --

And like I said, requiring that every law be a perfect prophylactic against stupidity would mean there would be no laws, and like I said, being able to mitigate the damage done by stupidity is not a bad thing.

Sorry, no help for you when it comes to stupidity. Deal with it.

Sorry, but a law that requires facebook et.al. to remove information when the owner of that information requests it IS a help against stupidity, as I've already said.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[hawkinspeter]

I didn't realise that, but it's there under privacy settings about reviewing tags. I imagine if you're not on Facebook then you'd be out of luck.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

Some time later, I discover the picture, by chance. I don't want it to be there, please Facebook, remove it and forget about me. No no no sir, this would harm your privacy and take away freedom from the guy who posted it. Can't do that, sorry, you're on the Internet now. Forever.

Yes I'm taking away something from the guy who posted the picture, but I don't call it freedom.

If you're using the threat of government violence to enforce the removal of information from some third party's property then yes you are taking away their freedom. You might not like to call it that, but that is what you are doing.

Wow, you're so wrong on so many level it is unbelievable. Facebook is a company. Since when the 1st does apply to them ? Besides what violence ? a fine is no "threat of violence". And if it's a picture of the guy, it has a right to his own image. or maybe the notion of right to image does not exist in the US ?

Per your reasoning any law that forbids stealing, or murder, or anything else FWIW, is taking away a freedom from someone. Freedom to take someone else's property, freedom to kill his neighbour, and so on. Heck if violent acts is my way of expressing my opinions, it should fall within the "free speech is absolute" marketing crap, shouldn't it ?

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[QRDeNameland]

Hatta is right that you have a free speech right to express the knowledge that your neighbor is on vacation.

And the neighbor has the right to say "that is not information I want made public, I did not make it public, and I want it removed from facebook, etc." He should be in control of his information.

He has the right to say that, and depending on the situation, he may even have the right to have such information removed under existing law. That is a far cry from "the right to be forgotten", which asserts that anything you make public can then be re-rendered private by decree. The universe simply doesn't work that way.

Isn't it a bit hypocritical to complain that Facebook is busy scraping their user's data for their own use and then say that someone has no right to control information about themselves? Either you have the right not to have Facebook controlling your data or you don't.

Not at all. I object to Facebook's business model of, as you say, "scraping their user's data for their own use", and therefore I don't use Facebook. But if you're voluntarily signed up for a free service based on such a business model, what right do you have to object to what happens to your data after you've already made it public? None, in my opinion.

If you were paying for Facebook and their business model instead was to give you the assurance that your data was, at least to any extent possible, under your control...then you have a cause for grievance. I likewise object to Gmail scanning emails for content, and therefore don't use Gmail, but again, many others voluntarily choose not to care, and it's impossible to protect people from foolishly making information public after the fact. But if I were to find out my ISP was doing so in violation of my ToS, that's a whole different story.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[mvdwege]

You do not own "every bit of information about you".

In Europe we do. The world is not the US, deal with it.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Ash-Fox]

The sharing of information once legitimately published cannot become illegitimate just because the person involved doesn't want it to be known.

The right to be forgotten only applies to personally identifiable information.

The "right" to be forgotten is a form of censorship and has nothing at all to do with privacy.

Why do you need the right to know someone's home address again? I can't really think of many 'good' reasons.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Ash-Fox]

A "right to be forgotten" implies silencing those who do not want a person's actions forgotten, and this must not be allowed.

How does it imply that? The legal document talks about companies being required to remove personal information like your home address and phone number, not what you did.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Sockatume]

You seem to be labouring under the misapprehension that this law would give one carte blanche to have any information about oneself removed. This is not the case. Like all of the data protection directives, it only applies to information given by you to a company, or information that a company gathers about you in the course of working with you. For example your relationship with Facebook as one of their customers falls under this law, but your relationship with the New York Times as the subject of their famous headline, "Adrian Lopez doesn't read up on things before posting about them on Slashdot", is not affected by it.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[miltonw]

Wow! I didn't know that. You own every bit of information about you? Fantastic. So you tell the government to erase everything it knows about you and it does? I'm moving there right away.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[miltonw]

I'll take this as an admission that you cannot provide any citation to back up your claims.

Back at you. LOL!

You can cherry-pick all the "examples" you want but you are avoiding the broad picture.

How would this "Right" to be forgotten work? Who has to spend the time and money to search everywhere for "your" data? Are you going to? Or do you expect someone to do all that for you? In many cases the original posting was by the person who now wants it removed, so who is responsible for tracking down all the places it might have gone?

Who does all that work? What do they look for, your name? If so, how do they know which "Bob Jones" is you? What bits of information about "you" are they supposed to "erase"? The data exists all over the place and all Facebook, Google, et. al. can do is delete the link. Oops! The data you found so embarrassing is still there somewhere but now it's harder for you to locate to get it removed.

Do you expect some vague "government agency" to patrol all the Internet and tell all those sites what to "erase"? When has any government agency been that effective, or do you believe in magic?

Even if the "right" to be forgotten was a good idea, which I don't agree with, what magical incantation would make your embarrassing information "disappear"? It. Isn't. Possible.

That is one thing we have all learned about the Internet. Information does not disappear. I know you wish it were otherwise -- a lot of people do, but that's just the way it is. Passing a law that mandates something that is impossible to do is the epitome of stupid. You simply cannot make the Internet completely remove data. You know this because you alluded to it, so why do you think this law will do anything but require various companies waste tons of time and money attempting to do the impossible?

That's the broad picture that you are ignoring.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[mark-t]

I didn't think you could tag someone's name to a photo f they weren't on facebook. Otherwise the aforementioned setting of being able to review tags is worthless as one could tag you ithiu your ok by using a deliberately misspelled form of your name that still may obviously refer to you (and just look like an honest typo)

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Obfuscant]

Back at you. LOL!

I'm not the one claiming that there are "lots of laws" that cover the posting of private information like the fact that someone on vacation and their house is empty for three weeks. YOU are. If there are lots of laws, you should be able to cite one.

Who has to spend the time and money to search everywhere for "your" data?

Nobody. What makes you think someone does?

Are you going to?

I might. I might kibo the net for references to me. I know there are people who do, because I mentioned someone by name online and about a day later I got an email threatening action unless I changed the story to fit his version of reality. Maybe I'll just come across it while looking for something else. When I find my data someplace where I didn't put it, I should have the right to demand it be removed.

The data exists all over the place and all Facebook, Google, et. al. can do is delete the link.

Facebook can delete the wall posting or tag in the photo, which is much more than just deleting a link. The data might not yet exist "all over the place", so mitigating the spread is an appropriate action. Deleting the Facebook comment or tag is a lot more than just hiding the data, but even if all you do is get google to delete a link (which you've followed already so you know where it points and you are also getting the destination removed) you've made it harder for others to find the information. That's not a perfect prevention of stupidity, but it does mitigate the damage.

Do you expect some vague "government agency" to patrol all the Internet and tell all those sites what to "erase"?

I don't know where you came up with this. I said nothing of the sort.

Information does not disappear. I know you wish it were otherwise --

You want to think you know what I wish because it makes a wonderful straw man you can knock about, but you really don't have a clue. You've shown that. I've been rather explicit in saying that you can't prevent stupidity but you can MITIGATE against it. If someone posts the fact that I'm on vacation and my house is sitting empty for three weeks, no, of course I cannot delete that information from anyplace that has copied it already, but I can have the post deleted so it can't be copied from there again. If that prevents a casual user from finding that data and acting on it, then we've MITIGATED the stupidity of the person who posted it.

I'll repeat this again since you seem to ignore it: if you demand that every law be a perfect prophylactic for stupidity, then we could have no laws at all. Maybe the word "prophylactic" confuses you? As you say it, you can't STOP stupidity by laws, but I say you can mitigate. Mitigate? "Lessen the negative consequences". Keep damages from happening.

so why do you think this law will do anything but require various companies waste tons of time and money attempting to do the impossible?

Because it isn't impossible? It is quite easy for Google Groups, for example, to delete a post. It is quite easy for Facebook to delete things. Nobody says that Facebook has to go find the same information everywhere it appears on the net to delete it. They will have to find the places THEY'VE given it to (like business partners they share info with), but if YOU'VE put it someplace they don't know about why do you think they'd be responsible for finding it?

And why shouldn't they have that responsibility? They are free to change their "privacy policy" without true notice so that they are "allowed" to give your data to others; why shouldn't they be required to undo what they've done? You ask who is supposed to search the net for every occurrance of a piece of data, so here's the turnabout on you: who is supposed to review every website's TOS every day to see if there has been a change that would mean their data is now free for the sharing?

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[miltonw]

Got it. You believe in magic. No problem.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[mvdwege]

Wow, an idiot who thinks that just because you own something, the government can't restrict how you use it.

Do you have to work at being that dumb, or are you just twelve?

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[miltonw]

Protip: If you have to resort to insults, you've lost the debate.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Hatta]

So that's how it goes. When you meet an argument you can't refute you cry "troll". For the record, I mean everything I say here in earnest. If I'm wrong, show me how. That's the only way I'll learn. I promise I'll change my mind if you present an argument I can't refute. But you have to be prepared to question things you take for granted, because I don't take anything for granted.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[scared masked man]

That doesn't stop Facebook keeping the information they can extract from the tag, regarding your friends and your interests and so on. Also, that doesn't do you any good if you aren't a Facebook user yourself.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[mark-t]

How do tag somebody who isn't a facebook user?

If this is possible, how does it keep somebody from not needing your approval to tag you even if you request it by using a mispelling of your name, or a nickname you might go by? If that's the case, the requirement to review tags is not particularly valuable.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[mvdwege]

Here's a tip for you: once you start discussing the opponents tone instead of his arguments, you've given up all semblance of debate.

But of course you didn't want a debate, now did you? You wanted to post a gotcha question so you could flounce off and pronounce your superiority.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[scared masked man]

They used to allow arbitrary text as well as users' names as tag (I don't use Facebook anymore, so I don't know if they still do). Since they get people to upload their address books, it becomes easier to guess which MarkT you are. Those are the "shadow profiles" which sometimes get talked about.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[miltonw]

Here's a tip for you: once you start discussing the opponents tone instead of his arguments, you've given up all semblance of debate.

LOL! God! I do love a fool! Let's address your "arguments", shall we?

Wow, an idiot who...

That's compelling! I never considered that.

Do you have to work at being that dumb, or are you just twelve?

I'm convinced. Your "arguments" are completely convincing. You win!

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[miltonw]

I don't debate fools because it's a complete waste of time. You might not be a fool. If you actually want to debate, please repost your argument without the histrionics and I'll assume you are actually sane and debate with you.

Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it

[Anonymous Coward]

A law where you can decide what I write on my wall. That makes perfect sense. Why don't you go kill some jews and make people cry over your national leader's death while you're at it.

Re:Okay, I'll say it

[Anonymous Coward]

"I don't like ridiculous laws, " but you are perfectly fine with ridiculous abuses

Think twice.

[Westwood0720]

Think twice before you post ANYTHING online. Because once its there, its there forever. Use discretion.

Re:Think twice.

[ctk76]

Alcohol, Facebook's official drink!

Re:Think twice.

[Ash-Fox]

Think twice before you post ANYTHING online. Because once its there, its there forever.

I tested your theory by posting a unique image on to Google+, I then deleted it. I have not been able to find this unique image since. What did I do wrong?

Re:Think twice.

[Westwood0720]

I tested your theory by posting a unique image on to Google+, I then deleted it. I have not been able to find this unique image since. What did I do wrong?

I built a sandbox for my kid and did not find one trace of gold or silver when digging. Must not exist.

Just because you didn't find it there doesn't mean it doesn't exist somewhere else. I'm sure someone on this planet has it or will have it.

Re:Think twice.

[Ash-Fox]

Just because you didn't find it there doesn't mean it doesn't exist somewhere else.

I'm just going to wait for you to prove it. Because so far, I've been successful in removing it, which disproves your theory applies to everything on the Internet.

Re:Think twice.

[Westwood0720]

I'm just going to wait for you to prove it. Because so far, I've been successful in removing it, which disproves your theory applies to everything on the Internet.

Equally I can ask you to prove that you even posted anything at all.

But if you did in fact post something, I'm sure the image is stored on some server or database somewhere. Yes, it may never be found by you or if it is ever found just be shrugged off. But I'm sure its somewhere out there.

Re:Think twice.

[Ash-Fox]

Equally I can ask you to prove that you even posted anything at all.

Would a screenshot of the post suffice?

Re:Think twice.

[Westwood0720]

Naw, I think I'll just end this here. You post a screenshot, I see the image, I host it across a few boards, and there's your image on the web.

My initial point was that whatever goes out there cannot be guaranteed to be gone forever. Like calling your boss a douche out loud in the office. No matter how many times you try to take it back or wish you hadn't said it, there's no knowing how many people heard you say it and how many people those people have told others. Its out there. Its been done. Can't take it back. I see posting something on Facebook, Twitter, forums or /. . Its out there. And who knows where it will end up.

Upton Sinclair

[fldsofglry]

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it! -- Upton Sinclair http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Upton_Sinclair

Re:Upton Sinclair

[fldsofglry]

realized TheCarp used the same quote above.

Re:Upton Sinclair

[ZombieBraintrust]

I misread that as

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his sanity depends upon his not understanding it

-- Chthulu

It could be true.

[pclminion]

Actually, it isn't far-fetched to assume that lawmakers will do something idiotic that causes a bunch of consequences they didn't intend. While I can easily see Facebook trying to language-lawyer this shit to their advantage, I'd give it 50/50 chance the law actually does imply the goofy stuff Facebook says it does.

I believe that laws should always be enforced in full and to the letter, along with all unintended consequences. This way, broken laws can be quickly identified and fixed (or repealed). It also would prevent prosecutors from selectively enforcing obscure provisions of the law to target specific individuals.

When judges and juries start making exceptions for cases that are "obviously not what was meant" we just encourage more sloppy law-making.

Re:It could be true.

[Anonymous Coward]

If a law existed in a vacuum that would be possible. In reality more than one law applies to a situation, and a judge and a jury (if applicable, not all countries have them) have to do a balancing act between them. You have a right to be forgotten, the company has an obligation to keep certain records for X years for tax purposes. You have a right to be forgotten, the press has a right to report on you. If laws conflict exceptions can't be avoided.

Re:It could be true.

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't worry about EU lawmakers being sloppy. If they can produce hundreds of pages of documents related to the regulations on breeding snails and planting strawberries, surely they can produce a watertight legislation regarding privacy. It's the lobbying part I'm worried about. You won't plug a hole if someone is paying you good money to leave it open.

Re:It could be true.

[pclminion]

When laws conflict, both laws should be nullified. This would have the nice side effect of reducing the number of laws.

Re:It could be true.

[stenvar]

You have a right to be forgotten, the press has a right to report on you. If laws conflict exceptions can't be avoided.

What makes you think the press has a right to report on you? Although laws generically guarantee "freedom of the press", a specific law like this still takes precedence.

Re:It could be true.

[Anonymous Coward]

Diederik Stapel, former professor in social psychology, fabricated and manipulated research. The Dutch press was all over him. There may be strong privacy laws in the Netherlands, but no judge will object to a news outlet reporting about him using his full name. If someone is sufficiently unimportant that may be different, but then the news outlet won't lose anything of consequence by not being able to print his full name.

Perhaps in the US everything is black and white without any shades of grey in between, but there are places in the world where those shades of grey do exist. If a judge has to decide he will weigh the importance of conflicting rights in the specific case at hand.

Re:It could be true.

[Sockatume]

Even presupposing that a self-consistent set of axioms could be created, the legal process we have could not and has not created it, so it simply isn't possible to apply "the law" completely on a problem to a single, unambiguous outcome.

Case in point, "fire in a crowded theatre": you have two mutually incompatible laws at work and must enumerate exemptions, at which point exemptions must always be considered.

They learned from the NSA

[dywolf]

"It Would Violate Your Privacy to Say if We Spied on You" - the NSA

Re:They learned from the NSA

[dywolf]

Ya, that was totally a troll post. Thank you faceless gutless enemy who happened to get mod points.

Phone numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

The "right to be forgotten" seems like a bizarre concept. Imagine that my friends post their personal phone numbers and email addresses on Facebook, and I sync that with my phone's address book.

When my friends decide to delete their Facebook account, what exactly happens to my phone's address book? Is that contact information also removed from my phone automatically? Must I keep the Facebook app on my phone just to ensure that my contacts will be deleted on-demand?

What if I already had that information? What if I have had several phone calls with my friend? Is the Facebook app responsible for removing all phone records from my phone to ensure that I don't have access to my friend's phone number?

Is is technically possible to do a one-time sync from Facebook to my phone's address book, or must I also store tracking information that uniquely identifiers each of my friends Facebook profiles? What happens if I uninstall the Facebook app? Must Facebook preemptively delete my contacts just to ensure that I don't keep any illegally?

Re:Phone numbers

[Obfuscant]

What if I already had that information?

If your friend tells you to forget his phone number, why would you refuse to do so? Are you going to say "no, asshole, I'm keeping your phone number just to spite you."

Why do you care what your friend tells facebook?

Translation: FB wants to sell your data

[WillAffleckUW]

In other words, FB just wants to sell your data, and will come up with any excuse to justify that.

Re:Translation: FB wants to sell your data

[miltonw]

They don't need any "excuse". That's their business model. They provide all sorts of free services that their users like and in exchange their users have agreed to Facebook using all their data.

I get a kick out of people, using Facebook for free, complaining and complaining about how Facebook uses their data in ways that they agreed to.

Comedy is plentiful these days.

Re:Translation: FB wants to sell your data

[WillAffleckUW]

So, in other words, you agree with my translation, not the deliberately muddy way that FB communicates with people.

However, let us be crystal, EU citizens do have rights that override corporate desires, and the Right to be Forgotten used to be one of the hallmarks of America, not Europe.

It is a shame how far we have fallen from our former glory here in the US.

Re:Translation: FB wants to sell your data

[miltonw]

So, in other words, you agree with my translation, not the deliberately muddy way that FB communicates with people.

However, let us be crystal, EU citizens do have rights that override corporate desires, and the Right to be Forgotten used to be one of the hallmarks of America, not Europe.

It is a shame how far we have fallen from our former glory here in the US.

I was not disagreeing with you.

However, the stupid "Right to be Forgotten" was never a hallmark of the United States. The right to privacy certainly might be considered that, but that really isn't the same thing.

Re:Translation: FB wants to sell your data

[WillAffleckUW]

Wrong. The Right to be Forgotten used to exist in the USA. Until somewhere in the 80s, people literally could move to another state and effectively do a full reset.

But you may be too young to know that.

Maybe they can win either way

[Anonymous Coward]

It occurs to me that if Facebook gets slapped down here (because the RTBF applies only to the particular site being requested) then they will have created an out for themselves.

All they would have to do is created a 'client' site, say facebookuserinformation.com, and copy every bit of Facebook data there automatically. Then they can truthfully say, "Yes, your Honor, we have deleted every speck of this user's data from our site" while still retaining it (and selling it) at the client site.

Oooooo...

[Jintsui]

Can you say Facebook downgrade? Mmmmhmmmm...

Re:Oooooo...

[Bob the Super Hamste]

I thought they were rapidly approaching penny stock territory or has it leveled off recently.

You people are dumb and/or deceitful

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook doesn't sell your data. They sell advertising on their own site, which allows demographic and keyword targeting with no personally identifiable information.

Facebook says

[future assassin]

"the proposal would require social media sites to perform extra tracking to remove data which has been copied to other sites"

aka

We sold the user date to 100's of other companies....

Re:Okay, I'll say it

[flimflammer]

Why do you assume this law is directed only to Facebook or other free web services?

Fuck facebook x 3

[faustoc4]

Fuck facebook Fuck facebook Fuck facebook They are misunderstanding on purpose what is clearly written, also they cite an impossible limitation: they cannot control what is published in other sites/social networks. Well, no one is asking to achieve the impossible, just erase my data from your cloud whenever I ask

No tracking required

[headcase88-2]

Silly claim by Facebook. Facebook should already ask you before you send any of your information to a different site. If the user accepts this, FB wouldn't be on the hook for the data on other sites (assuming the EU law was made rationally), therefore they wouldn't need to "keep more tracking data". It would be the user's responsibility to knock on the door of each site they allowed FB to share information with and tell them to delete all their data. Of course, if FB is sharing your data to other sites without your permission, that's a whole other issue.

Re:No tracking required

[Ash-Fox]

Facebook should already ask you before you send any of your information to a different site.

They did, and you agreed to it. You see, Facebook has this thing called a 'terms of service'...

Re:No tracking required

[headcase88-2]

In that case, they may be forced by EU law to provide a list of 3rd parties they shared to until you delete your account, but they still wouldn't need tracking data.

Yes, please

[atisss]

Please do track to which sites you are copying my information, and also please can I see the list.
Option to remove some information from specific site would be nice.

Re:Okay, I'll say it

[logjon]

If you don't want something on the internet, don't put it on the internet. If you put something on the internet that you don't want on the internet, well, looks like you fucked up.

I think you missed this part.

Facebook has no right to comment

[Digital Vomit]

Facebook has no right to comment on this. We're talking about a person's right to privacy, not a corporation's right to privacy.

Facebook is not a person; it is a corporation. It has one end goal: to make money. Everything Facebook says is driven by that one goal. If Facebook says that the right for people to be forgotten would harm privacy, what it really means is that the right for people to be forgotten would reduce Facebook's profits.

Twitter

[Anonymous Coward]

Twitter already allows user to delete content no matter where it is stored. Their terms of service force third parties to honour deletion requests. (Whether they actually do it is another matter). I can't see why FB cannot do this too.

Keep the 'net free

[Hentes]

Stop trying to regulate the Internet! The idiots who use Facebook deserve to be tracked.

Re:Keep the 'net free

[Anonymous Coward]

The idiots who use Facebook deserve to be tracked.

And what of those who don't use Facebook, but for whom Facebook has created shadow accounts?

Do they deserve to be tracked too?

Re:Okay, I'll say it

[flimflammer]

No, I didn't. It's just that the words you use in your entire message basically boils down to willfully handing over information about yourself as if that is the only way you are ever tracked. Searching for a product on Amazon, a search query on Google, merely visiting any particular site, or any number of things are sufficient to begin building profiles about you and your internet habits. It isn't always just posting your information on facebook for them to harvest or using gmail.

I agree that people shouldn't be posting things onto the internet they'd rather others not know about, but on that same vain I don't think the complex web of advertising networks embedded on practically every site on the internet should be able to pull literally everything you do on the internet and everywhere you go to figure out how to serve you ads.

Re:Okay, I'll say it

[mcgrew]

How is it "abuse?" People sign up for it knowing they're posting a whole bunch of shit out on the internet where everyone can see everything.

I don't have a facebook account, but I know people who do so I'm probably on it. See the problem now?

Not on FB, but someone else posted my info....

[realsilly]

.... and took it upon themselves to post information about me on-line. So as a non-FB user, I have every right to be forgotten when I never gave them (the user or Facebook) permission to put information about me out there. I didn't create an account. I tell everyone I know to not put information about me on Facebook or on any social network, but when someone else takes it upon themselves to post info about me, now FB claims that they own that data.

This is where I have big issues with Privacy laws and companies who data mine and then sell that data.

Don't I have every right to be forgotten, since I went out of my way to avoid being "remembered"?

Re:Not on FB, but someone else posted my info....

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you completely, but I think that there may be some problems if they in turn argue that removing references to you in their posts violate their copyright, and copyright violation is a very serious offense.

divorce without TOS

[epine]

I have no commercial relationship with Facebook. I've never visited their site. If they are maintaining information about me, it's entirely without my consent. I'd like to click a box to disappear myself from their incidental radar screen (such as if people I know unwisely divulge my image or personal details), but it appears that I'd first have to agree to the Facebook TOS to do so.

Let's have a law that enables divorce without TOS.

laws and the internet don't mix

[caviare]

If you join Facebook, you have just signed away your rights to privacy. Zuckerberg has as good as said so.

The law is an ass. Internet law is a dumb-ass. The law just can't keep up with the internet.

If only there were a way to find a tag

[Anonymous Coward]

If only there were a way to find a tag on a picture. Some sort of search engine within facebook and web-of-interest would be needed, but Facebook obviously can't just go and shoehorn something that huge and complex into their little application, can they...

The first sentence of the article should go like:

[Anonymous Coward]

"In a sudden, uncontrolled onset of a greed-fuelled schizophrenia, typical for corporate knuckle-heads, Facebook representative said..."

Now it makes sense.

Re:Okay, I'll say it

[logjon]

So what you're telling me is that once you send data over a global network of computers, that data proliferates? I'm shocked, shocked , I tell you.

Right to Remember - Never Forget

[ZombieBraintrust]

Individuals have an absolute right to their memories. They have a right to share them and keep them in the public sphere. I can't help but think a "Right to be forgotten" would be used to hide curruption. It may be used by felons to hide their crimes from future employers.

Re:Right to Remember - Never Forget

[stenvar]

It may be used by felons to hide their crimes from future employers.

That's not theoretical, it's an explicit goal of such legislation in Europe.

Facebook is dumb

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously?

This is just like saying, "Making murder against the law will increase murders.

Right to be forgotten

[Anonymous Coward]

We WANT it to interfere with any privacy REGIME or ENFORCEMENT system. Forgotten is literal.

Direct and indirect data

[saikou]

More specifically, as it was described before, "if an individual no longer wants his personal data to be processed or stored by a data controller, and if there is no legitimate reason for keeping it, the data should be removed from their system" (see http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/12/26&format=PDF ) and the question becomes, if someone else published something about the person, does that information fall under the same provision.
The easy way around it was to narrow it down to self-published information.

I.e. if I publish a photo of myself with a friend on FB but at a later time decide to invoke le droit à l’oubli then FB should remove the photo from all of their systems. If someone managed to re-publish it from FB, that's no longer FB's problem. And, should that friend publish a copy I can't demand it to be removed (or sue when it isn't) as that would require a total tracking and censorship of everything other users post. So every time some other friend publishes a photo or a post that mentions me, FB would have to prevent them from doing so. Heck, all old posts with my name and photos should disappear as soon as I demand it, or have my name and face blanked out. Tell me that wouldn't freak users out :)

"I published a bunch of photos from my party and suddenly there's this blur over [REDACTED]'s face! Do I have a virus?! Wait, I typed [REDACTED] but all I get in my post is "redacted" :( HALP!"

Retroactive License Changes

[maz2331]

Indeed, when you post to a site like FB, you retain copyright of the post, but grant the site and anyone who you grant access to the data a license to re-use it (share, comment, etc). Being able to pull that license also affects third parties (other FB users) and *their* comments, derivitave posts, etc. that were made under the initial license granted.

If you don't like it...

[Anonymous Coward]

... Don't use it. FTW!!

Re:Okay, I'll say it

[flimflammer]

You're clearly not someone worth having a discussion with.

read the draft regulation

[stenvar]

People would do well to read the actual regulation:

http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/document/review2012/com_2012_11_en.pdf

Note that the regulation exempts pretty much anything that actually matters: the EU itself, national security, and police. "Private" information means pretty much anything that is personally identifiable. It also doesn't mention free speech or freedom of the press, and doesn't seem to have exceptions for reporting on politicians.

gee, thanks

[AdamWill]

Because after all, who can we trust to protect our privacy better than Facebook?!

Re:Okay, I'll say it

[Anonymous Coward]

People sign up for it knowing they're posting a whole bunch of shit out on the internet where everyone can see everything....

News for you:
In the EU at least, 'signing up for Facebook' is not a blank cheque; there are some data related rights you *can't* sign away, because the law takes precedence over the (supposed) 'contract' you have 'signed' with Facebook.
So when you sign up for FB in the EU, you can do so with the knowledge that any 'agreement' you 'sign' is *invalid* in any respects which conflict with (e.g.) data protection laws.

How is that anyone else's problem?

It's FB's problem if they handle your data in such a way that they break the data protection laws or any other such laws. Getting 'agreement' from you *does not* give them legal protection if the 'agreement' conflicts with the law.

Do you understand now?

You (and FB, probably the same thing) may not like this at all, but it is ultimately a condition of doing business in the EU. FB will be *made* to understand this eventually.
(And don't bother with "Then FB should just block the whole of the EU out" - they would face a shareholder lawsuit and *lose*)

Crocodile tears

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook is one of the biggest offenders of violating peoples privacy, and endangering whole families.