French Gov't Gives Facebook 3 Months To Stop Tracking Non-User Browsers

Reader iamthecheese writes RT reports that France's National Commission of Information and Freedoms found Facebook tracking of non-user browsers to be illegal. Facebook has three months to stop doing it. The ruling points to violations of members and non-members privacy in violation of an earlier ruling. The guidance, published last October, invalidates safe harbor provisions. If Facebook fails to comply the French authority will appoint someone to decide upon a sanction. Related: A copy of the TPP leaked last year no longer requires signing countries to have a safe harbor provision.

Comments

Youtube next?

[sims 2]

I wonder if youtube is going to be next they keep track of the videos you watch to show you recommended ones on the home page even if you don't sign in.

Re:Youtube next?

[EzInKy]

It is their website after all. Facebook tracks people who don't visit their site. Big difference here. We could use a law such as this French one here in the "land of the free".

Re:Youtube next?

[unrtst]

Aren't there any devs left on this site?

I'm all for privacy, but if:
* I'm running some site
* someone (a bunch of people) embed an image on their page that hits back to my site (or a service I offer)
* I log that shit cause those users are hitting my servers ... why is it wrong for me to use that however data however I like?

IMO, if anyone should be dinged here, it's those sites that are embedding the trackers without notifying the user that they'll be sending the users browser off to umteen different external sites.

Browsers can also be configured to aid with this. For example, the option "Block third-party cookies and site data", aka "from originating website only". I believe that used to be available for images as well.

Users also have multiple options to control what the computer they own does online. For general browsing, solutions vary from browser plugins (AdBlock and friends), Proxy based solutions, hosts file modifications, local DNS server, firewalls, etc.

FWIW, I do NOT think sites should be encouraged to evade these options. As long as they're using their domains on all those tracking things (which, as far as I can tell, they are), then I don't see the blame falling on the service provider. Don't want them to get your hits? Block them (facebook/twitter/google/linkedin/etc), or don't use sites that do that to you. This level of legislation seems to go a step beyond the "don't post links that point to sites that host copyrighted works", which no one in their right mind agreed with.

Re:Youtube next?

[herve_masson]

What you write is technically true. The thing is: a very tiny fraction of internet users has a clue about ways to protect their privacy. Most of them don't event think it matters. Because it's rather impractical to educate billions of users about this, some need to act to prevent big corporation to abuse their position. That's why french instances gave facebook a warn. Even though thay have no power to enforce anything seriously, I'm glag they took that position.

Works for me

[93 Escort Wagon]

I deleted my Facebook account several years ago. I never visit the site, nor do I follow links that will take me to Facebook even incidentally. Yet, when I do my regular cleansing of cookies, I always find some from Facebook.com and Facebook.net in the list.

Too bad I don't live in France...

Why give them 3 months?

[melted]

This should literally be like a 3-line code change. if (not logged in) { // don't log the cookie } Give them three weeks and a stern look to ensure compliance.

Re:Why give them 3 months?

[Zocalo]

You are assuming they are only tracking people based on Cookies. That's a rather naive view, I'm afraid. You'd be better to assume that they are using everything they can get their mitts on to try and track and identify people; IP address, which browser, which headers the browser supplies, any OS details they can get... Just installing extensions to protect your privacy can in itself make you more readily identifiable for tracking purposes. Have a play with the EFF's Panopticlick tool and although you need to enable scripting to make it work the results from the fingerprinting should be an eye opener if you've not seen them before.