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EU Commissioner Renews Call for Serious Fines in Data Privacy Laws
DW100 writes "Despite Google being fined €900,000 by Spanish authorities and €150,000 in France for its controversial privacy policies in recent months, an EU commissioner has admitted this is mere 'pocket money' to the company. Instead, a new legal regime that would have seen Google fined $1bn for breaching data protection laws is needed to make U.S. companies fear and respect the law in Europe. 'Is it surprising to anyone,' asked Commissioner Viviane Reding, 'that two whole years after the case emerged, it is still unclear whether Google will amend its privacy policy or not? Europeans need to get serious. And that is why our reform introduces stiff sanctions that can reach as much as 2% of the global annual turnover of a company. In the Google case, that would have meant a fine of EUR 731 million (USD 1 billion). A sum much harder to brush off.'"
Remove all the services, and only leave them search. See how the people of the EU like that.
Can't tax these damn global corporations as they use tax shelters at the country with the lowest corporate taxes.
Solution: Fine them for random stuff for a lot of money, but not so much money they'll stop doing business in your country.
This way you can let business flourish in your country and selectively tax each one the exact amount they can afford to pay without having to write spaghetti tax code.
brilliant really.
The EU is also responsible for the Data Retention Directive. Worse, most of their spy agencies are just as bad as the NSA. When you combine that with the lack of free speech in many EU countries it doesn't paint a pretty picture.
They're going to force companies to keep user data on EU soil. Which sounds nice, but that means they can force companies to keep your data for as long as they want and hand it all over to "law enforcement" when you've done something inconvenient. They will then have things like search results censored. (See Google France) I hate to say it, but people in the EU have even less privacy than those of us in the US. Even with/especially because of these privacy directives.
So lets pretend that we've just completed writing this code, as opposed to having just completed sabotaging it -Altera
Unbelievable. Only desperate government bureaucrats could possibly look at administrative fines as a source of income that might save the EU from its financial woes. Excessive taxes, fines, and other means of taking money from the people they are supposed to protect are not the keys to prosperity. Strangling the free economy REDUCES your income, morons. Your efforts will only bring about the inevitable financial collapse of the EU more quickly.
P.S. Google is laughing at your superior intellect.
Or even better, just tell google they have to stop selling services in Europe for a period of time, say 90 days. So nobody in Europe would be allowed to buy ads off Google while the ban was in place.
This would give competitors, who presumably adhere to EU law, a chance to step in and earn some revenue of their own.
Always getting in the way of the free market capitalism that could exploit all of that information on people.
Why won't they think of the corporate people?
Please call EU and make them fine Slashdot until they delete the new crap site.
"Oops! You do not appear to have javascript enabled."
This reminds me of Homer's "Everything's OK alarm" from the episode "The Wizard of Evergreen Terrace".
It would be a better service if Slashdot alerted people that forgot to disable javascript.
Finally, some restrictions on the mining of "big data". Some people have a HUGE problem with its collection and storage by greedy, sleazy, single minded corporations. Not to mention the fact that government goons can store and search that data however they please. Privacy is a human right. If you are willing to use it as currency to purchase shiny, you are part of the problem.
Brave Sir Robin ran away. ("No!") Bravely ran away away. ("I didn't!")
The ad companies will cry foul and make websites give messages saying how the evil socialist EU regime is taking this website away. Please email X to tell them to reverse this law etc.
Since they are injecting Chrome with malware and adware through buying extensions and now circumventing adblock plus and making javascript fail to load if they detect blockers I would not put this past them.
http://saveie6.com/
Not legal. When it comes to the question whether something "illegal" is done by a company, three things get taken into consideration:
1. What it costs to avoid the fine (or the profit to be had by ignoring the law, respectively)
2. Amount to pay when you get caught.
3. Chance to get caught.
That's it. And before someone asks, yes, risk management is part of my job, and these are essentially the considerations when it comes to laws. More and more often law changes get dumped on my desk rather than legal because we no longer avoid breaking the law by default, we check whether it pays to break it.
You'd be surprised how often it does...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
... that "do no evil" has been revised.
The biggest stick that can be used against them isn't even cash - they are fighting tooth and nail against being forced to put a notice on their front page admitting wrongdoing.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Except the new fine won't apply to Google. Google was fined previously for changing the privacy policy with insufficient notification and explanation of the change, not because they were actually violating anything other than a notification requirement.
puhlease.. this is all just a show. How about people focus on bigger problems like large fines for banks and other companies when their systems are breached and so called "crackers" make off with peoples private information for Social Security numbers, CC info etc...
Why do they want to target Google? What are the practical problems caused by the data collection?
keeping the data in EU means two very great things for me. 1) NSA must work harder to get it on their grubby hands , whereas with US firm they jsut need to ask 2) I can check the data and ask for rectification and so forth as an EU citizen, but good luck doing that in the US 3) it is much harder to market "me" in the Eu than it is in the US. My data you see cannot be sold that easily. 4) US law enforcement can pretty much run roughshed on my data in the US anyway so it isn't as if the EU law enforcement would be any worst
,2 and 3 , and give my finger in the general direction of US firm and the NSA. Thank you.
AS an EU citizen I'll take that convenience of 1
So back at you.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Even though your ranting makes no logical sense, you wanted a citation and I want to help you out.
Here you go: http://ec.europa.eu/competition/cartels/statistics/statistics.pdf
EU made rules. The companies agreed to the rules. If you break the rules - guess what - you get the penalty.
There's no use whining about it. If you don't like the rules to play nice with others then take your ball and play by yourself.
[looks around] notes missing steel industry, almost dead car industry, Detroit, electronics industry, retreating engineering industry, small widget manufacturing, semiconductor manufacture, computer manufacture, clothing manufacture... I'm really not sure that open trade has worked out that well, frankly. For that matter, in the intellectual areas where we maintained some presence for a little longer... not so much today. Companies think nothing of outsourcing anything they can, and countries like India are happy to fill those roles. Of course, we're still pushing paperwork around on Wall street and etc., and we have basic food commodities and some oil resources, but we're really not doing that well overall.
Within our borders, we have a large workforce, many of whom are unemployed, a large market, and immense natural resources, all within our borders. Economically speaking, it seems to me that a round of protectionism might not be a bad idea at all at this juncture.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Phew damn, at that rate the NSA will bankrupt Google in about 35 minuets.
Google are breaking the law. Pure and simple. Whatever you think of the law is a different matter.
I don't think fines will work for a variety of reasons, e.g. long trials and appeals processes while they negotiate the size of the settlement while the legal infringements continue unabated, and the eventual amount paid usually gets written off as a cost of doing business.
If the EU countries (and other regions, e.g. South America, and Africa) and their ISPs blocked or at least filtred Google (China and Saudi Arabia already do) and whoever else breaks the law (Our politicians seem to be happy with anti-piracy blocking), that'd get their undivided attention very quickly. Even if users circumvent the blocking using proxies or TOR, Google and other law breakers would still lose much of the surveillance data or it'd be rendered worthless. All the time that Google's infringing services are offline or unusable would provide opportunities for more ethical and legally compliant services to gain market share, e.g. for search there's IX Quick. It'd be nice to see more diversity and competition on the web instead of this massive, centralised domination by a small number of US companies. That would be even better for local economies.
On the espionage front, why should the USA be able to snoop on everyone else's web activities but nobody allowed to snoop on theirs? They have an unfair, unethical (and illegal) advantage in negotiating political, trade, aid, and business agreements. That's what the rest of the world are really up in arms about.
Indeed. Which is - I admit - a shame. But we're also capable of learning from our errors, it seems:
Source
I wish the same could be said about Obama's administration and its stance towards the NSA spying.
They're protecting their own economic interests.
As others have pointed out with links to back them up, the number of EU companies prosecuted under the same laws and the size of the fines applied, thoroughly debunks that assertion. The US is in Rome, try observing some facts about their way of life before assuming you know what they think.
If only there were some historical document [the] illustrating how [declaration] often that [of] happens we [independence] could look at.
You took colonised land away from a British king with the help of the French, not so impressive compared to William the Conquer who took England away from an English King.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.