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Facebook Wins Belgian Court Appeal Over Storing Non-User Data (bloomberg.com)

Posted by msmash on from the no-escape dept.

Stephanie Bodoni, and Aoife White reporting for Bloomberg Technology (condensed):Facebook won an appeal against a Belgian privacy ruling that prompted the social network to prevent people without an account from accessing its site within the country. The Brussels Court of Appeal said the nation's data protection authority couldn't prevent Facebook from storing data from non-users in a fight over measures the technology giant says help it combat hacking attacks. "Belgian courts don't have international jurisdiction over Facebook Ireland, where the data concerning Europe is processed," the Brussels court of appeal said in a ruling Wednesday, referring to the company's European headquarters. The court also said there was no urgency to rule on the case since Belgian court proceedings only started in mid-2015 over behavior that started in 2012. Facebook is appealing a ruling that ordered it to stop storing data from people who don't have an account with the social network, or face a 250,000 euro ($277,800) daily fine. Willem Debeuckelaere, president of the Belgian data protection commission, said last year that Facebook's "disrespectful" treatment of users' personal data, without their knowledge, "needs tackling." Facebook said it can now start showing its pages to Belgians who aren't signed up to its service.

25 comments

  1. We can thank Neelie Kroes for this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Allowing companies to pick and choose which country's laws to obey then make it stick for all of EU. I wish I could, but I'm only a citizen, not a corporation.

  2. Aoife is such a fuckable name. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Discuss.

  3. DEATH TO ZUCKERBERG by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Drag him out into the street to the guillotine and off with his head.
    Then go into every datacenter in the world that hosts Facebook servers and take a fire axe to them, douse it all with gasoline and burn it all into slag.
    Facebook is a fucking cancer of privacy invasion and needs to be erradicated completely.
    If you are still using Facebook then you are a fucking idiot and shouldn't be allowed to roam the world freely, you should be locked in a mental institution until such time as your sanity can be restored.

    1. Re: DEATH TO ZUCKERBERG by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shut up, nerdo.

    2. Re:DEATH TO ZUCKERBERG by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fack off, you doom coont.

    3. Re:DEATH TO ZUCKERBERG by bev_tech_rob · · Score: 0

      Facebook can be very useful for reconnecting with old classmates and friends you haven't seen in awhile.

      You just don't have to spill your beans about your whole life for the world to see and post stupid stuff (especially while drunk) that is going to get you arrested or fired.

      I just wish folks would quit showing me what they had for breakfast, lunch, dinner...(who cares?)

      Now like the other AC said, Shut up Nerdo...

      --
      You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
    4. Re: DEATH TO ZUCKERBERG by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nerds do not have friends and do not want to connect to former classmates who beat them up, brown-swirled them and defecated upon them. That's why they hate anything "social". It's a painful reminder of how ostracized they were and still are.

    5. Re:DEATH TO ZUCKERBERG by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is about facebook storing what you looked up to have for breakfast without having an account boyo

    6. Re:DEATH TO ZUCKERBERG by Dusthead+Jr. · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't consider myself the paranoid type, but you're talking about a company that goes out of its way to create a profile of people who haven't signed up. What make you think that if you do sign up and put as little information on it as possible, that they will stop collecting information about you that you haven't put on it.

    7. Re: DEATH TO ZUCKERBERG by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've gotta ask, how much of your comment is stereotyping and how much is projecting. Like they say: it gets better.

  4. "People without an account" by Calydor · · Score: 1

    Maybe I'm missing something here, but if people without an account aren't allowed to access the site by law, how are they supposed to sign up for an account in the first place?

    --
    -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
    1. Re:"People without an account" by vrt3 · · Score: 2

      It's all a bit muddy, but as far as I understand it, the law does not disallow non-users to access Facebook.

      I think it's like this: the privacy commission thinks (and I agree) that Facebook should not be allowed to track non-users: they have never agreed to it. Instead of stopping the tracking, Facebook denies access to non-users.

      Also, that is not about all of the site, and certainly not about registration pages. IIRC it's about Facebook pages of companies, organisations, events and stuff. These days, it seems, there are quite a lot of organisations that don't have a proper website of their own, just a Facebook page (which is mostly pretty uninformative, but that's besides the point).

      --
      This sig under construction. Please check back later.
    2. Re:"People without an account" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Access the site means access the user generated and service specific content. Although I have not followed recent developments on the privacy front in the EU, the last time I checked Facebook or any other company can store personally identifiable information just about anybody if they follow the rules concerning the use, storage, maintenance and processes around the information register. It should be nothing to do with jurisdiction, but if it is with the current rules, then the next step for the Belgians is the EU Court of Justice.

    3. Re: "People without an account" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Also... if you go to any website they can record what you look at or search for on their site. So... if non users dont want to be tracked , they shouldnt visit the site. This distinction between users and visitors is so dumb. In the real world, if you don't want to be seen entering the barn, then don't go in there. Sheesh.

    4. Re: "People without an account" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The problem with not entering the barn is that you cannot know in advance where the barn is.

      You don't need to visit their site to be tracked by Facebook: every site which has a "like" button will do.

  5. WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "Belgian courts don't have international jurisdiction over Facebook Ireland"

    Then what is the purpose of the EU? I thought the whole idea was to have one big happy family.

    1. Re: WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      One big happy GERMAN family with no Jews, to be accurate.

    2. Re: WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Apparently only US judges have global jurisdiction...

    3. Re: WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course, but tge US has the firepower to back that claim.

  6. No jurisdiction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "Belgian courts don't have international jurisdiction over Facebook Ireland, where the data concerning Europe is processed"

    They may not have jurisdiction over other countries, but why can't they say if Facebook wants to do business IN Belgium, their data centers outside of Belgium must follow their rules?

    1. Re:No jurisdiction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I believe the Belgian courts can say Facebook Belgium has to follow the rules, but the main problem is they filed an urgent matter ("summary proceedings" if Google learned how to translate by now). The court decided it's not an urgent matter, since Facebook is doing it since 2012, and the complaint is filed in 2015.

      The Belgian privacy will continue to fight it, first through a higher court, and probably also using a regular procedure. But knowing the justice system in Belgium that last option will probably take many years.

      To shorten it up: the court didn't say: "Facebook is right", but they said "you'll have to complain using a different (more lengthy) procedure".

    2. Re:No jurisdiction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      ... centers outside of Belgium must follow their rules?

      Because then you get the French government demanding the truth be deleted from every Google server on the planet.

      Because then you get the US government demanding emails from Irish servers, passengers' lists from non-US aviation companies, depositors' lists from non-US banking companies. Or you get the US government claiming they own the internet so they can prosecute anyone, anywhere for a cyber-crime.

  7. Key sentence is about jurisdiction. by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

    "Belgian courts don't have international jurisdiction over Facebook Ireland, where the data concerning Europe is processed,

    So to all the idiots who were saying I was wrong and that EU member state laws regarding data protection can span data stored on servers anywhere in the world, bite me.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
    1. Re:Key sentence is about jurisdiction. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, because EU-wide jurisprudence is a thing, lol.

  8. They are not the only ones storing public profiles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Facebook is appealing a ruling that ordered it to stop storing data from people who don't have an account with the social network, or face a 250,000 euro ($277,800) daily fine.

    The Irish are more careful about their data management and less snoopy than the US spy agencies. Literally all data you think is private and confidential and stored between you and the corporation "Facebook" are accessible to US and foreign governments via US FBI moles.

    Facebook is in Ireland because of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

    That is why it is known as Fedbook. All your profiles are accessible to spy agencies immediately.