Facebook Told To Stop Taking Data From German WhatsApp Users (bloomberg.com)

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Facebook Told To Stop Taking Data From German WhatsApp Users (bloomberg.com)

Posted by msmash on Tuesday September 27, 2016 @02:10AM from the privacy-woes dept.

An anonymous reader shares a Bloomberg report: Facebook, already under scrutiny in the U.S. and the European Union for revisions to privacy policies for its WhatsApp messaging service, was ordered by Hamburg's privacy watchdog to stop processing data of German users of the chat service. In a renewed clash with the social-network operator, Johannes Caspar, one of Germany's most outspoken data protection commissioners, ordered Facebook to delete any data it already has. The news comes as EU privacy regulators, who previously expressed concerns about the policy shift, meet in Brussels to discuss their position. There's no legal basis for Facebook to use information of WhatsApp customers, Caspar said Tuesday. "This order protects the data of about 35 million WhatsApp users in Germany," Caspar said. "It has to be their decision as to whether they want to connect their account with Facebook. Therefore, Facebook has to ask for their permission in advance. This has not happened."

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Doesn't affect any new users by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 02:13 · Score: 0

only existing ones. So new users will still get the spying.
Johannes Caspar by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 02:16 · Score: -1

So this one guy "orders" something and it happens? Is this how things work in Germany?
1. Re:Johannes Caspar by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 02:19 · Score: -1
  
  Velcome to GERMANY!! Vee haff many rules!!
2. Re:Johannes Caspar by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 02:28 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  It's not a "guy", it's a public offical telling Facebook that in the eyes of the adminstration, they are violating the law, and that they need to stop doing that. It's the same thing as a policeman stopping your car and telling you you were speeding. Now you can either accept their verdict or ignore it, at which point it is going to court.
3. Re:Johannes Caspar by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 05:28 · Score: -1
  
  Bwahaha you dumb Eurotrash dummy. When a cop tells you you're speeding it's an *accusation* like if your crazy cat-lady neighbor were to *accuse* you of hurting her cats' feelings by not inviting them to your kid's birthday party. Our *verdicts* are given by *juries* of *peers* in *court* where you are presumed *innocent*. If you agree with the cop you can decide to save everyone some time and forego your rights but let's not pretend like the US is anything like your dumb ninny European shithole.
Nice I guess, but... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 02:20 · Score: -1

...considering Facebook is tracking people all over the Internet, whether they're actually logging into Facebook or not (through the use of "share" buttons, supercookies and the like)...why go after Whatsapp alone?
Oh, right. Facebook is too useful to the BND and other intelligence agencies for them to target, they'd literally be shooting themselves in the foot. Whatsapp, in the meanwhile, is only useful to people who think that the people behind Facebook are actually trustworthy enough to build a privacy-friendly messenger.
1. Re:Nice I guess, but... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-28 00:49 · Score: 0
  
  Why is parent modded -1 while making a lot of sense ?
Simple solution by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 02:28 · Score: -1

You don't need to make more rules read the BIBLE and everything will be CLEAR. The constitution should be ripped up ALL you need is the BIBLE
1. Re:Simple solution by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 02:33 · Score: -1
  
  Shame the BIBLE doesn't make your POSTS more clear. Yeah, that's what we need to do, throw out all our laws and base society on the ramblings of a kiddy-fiddling cult leader from 2000 years ago.
  Fucking MORON. The only thing I'll ever need your BIBLE for is if I run out of usable TOILET PAPER.
2. Re:Simple solution by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 02:41 · Score: -1
  
  Shame the BIBLE doesn't make your POSTS more clear. Yeah, that's what we need to do, throw out all our laws and base society on the ramblings of a kiddy-fiddling cult leader from 2000 years ago.
  Fucking MORON. The only thing I'll ever need your BIBLE for is if I run out of usable TOILET PAPER.
  That's the KORAN, not hte BIBLE
3. Re:Simple solution by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 03:10 · Score: -1
  
  Quran. No trouble telling you're an ignorant, Christian shitwipe. You can't even spell the name of a book you detest for no other reason than the talking heads on Fox News told you to.
  Shame they aren't still feeding your kind to fucking lions, that's about the only use for a Christian.
4. Re:Simple solution by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 03:13 · Score: -1
  
  They're both as bad as each other. Christians are responsible for at least as many atrocities as any other religious group.
5. Re:Simple solution by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 03:25 · Score: -1
  
  Wikipedia disagrees with you:
  The Quran, literally meaning "the recitation"; also romanized Qur'an or Koran is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims believe to be a revelation from God.
Easy to fix by MitchDev · 2016-09-27 02:35 · Score: -1, Flamebait

Don't want Facebook to use your data from Facebook's "WhatsApp"? Then don't use WhatsApp. Vote with your wallet, or if WhatsApp is free, then learn there's always a cost...
1. Re:Easy to fix by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 02:46 · Score: 1
  
  No it isn't, because it's enough if someone else has your phone number in his address book. You don't actually need to use WhatsApp or Facebook
2. Re:Easy to fix by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 02:57 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  I woke for a large German company, and we just received notice that the app will be removed from all of our corporate phones if installed. I am not sure why the app became so popular in Germany specifically.
3. Re:Easy to fix by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 03:06 · Score: 1
  
  That has very little to do with this. That would apply IF Facebook had actually notified WhatsApp users that it would start slurping in their data. They just started doing that without any kind of warning or consent, which breaks privacy law, which is what this was about.
4. Re:Easy to fix by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 03:10 · Score: 1
  
  Nope, it doesn't work like that. "Vote with your wallet" is just neoliberal propaganda. If something is illegal, it cannot be done, and if you do it you go to jail. It doesn't matter what "the market" says, no "invisible hand" can change that (and no "invisible hand" has never existed, for the record), and it also doesn't matter what the privacy policy says, forbidden means forbidden: even if all the 7 billion human beings suddenly, explicitly agreed to be spied on and were even ready paid for that, it would still be illegal.
5. Re:Easy to fix by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 03:21 · Score: -1
  
  End-to-end encryption probably.
6. Re:Easy to fix by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 03:23 · Score: 0
  
  This isn't about making profit, it's about spying.
  They can make profit without the spying.
7. Re:Easy to fix by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 03:31 · Score: 0
  
  Bad advice. WhatsApp wasn't free when many people used it, or associated with Facebook in any way. It's only now that Facebook has acquired WhatsApp that this is a concern. But there is currently no way of opting out of data sharing except by installing WhatsApp and agreeing to their terms of service.
8. Re:Easy to fix by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 04:23 · Score: 0
  
  WhatsApp was an independent company that charged $1/year for the app. Then Facebook bought them and started using their data. There's really no free market solution to what they're doing, it's just illegal, hence the government telling them to stop.
9. Re:Easy to fix by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 04:25 · Score: 0
  
  All messaging apps become popular because they're popular within certain demographics. If 90% of your friends use this messaging app and 40% use a different app (but also have the first one installed) you're going to use the first one.
  WhatsApp took Europe (and some other places) by storm a while back, and was virtually unheard of in America until recently.
10. Re:Easy to fix by psycho12345 · 2016-09-27 04:44 · Score: 2
  
  As far as I'm aware, the main thing WhatsApp has going for it, in a similar way Skype did, is that it allows international texting on the cheap.
  I believe here in the US it isn't much to add on to a wireless plan to get international texting, but in other parts of the world, they charge by the text and gouge pretty hard on it. I would be interested to know how much Deutsche Telekom (or other major wireless operators) charge for international texts.
  So WhatApp is the perfect mix of ease of use (no login needed), cheap (was 1 USD a year after the first year, now its free), and by passes the expensive text charges.
  As an anecdote, I regularly text a small group, with one person in the UK, another in Singapore, and another in Thailand. Last I looked, if I didn't have unlimited international texting in my wireless plan, it would be like 25 cents PER TEXT. So a small conversation of rapid fire texts would rack up pretty fast.
11. Re:Easy to fix by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 05:13 · Score: 1
  
  Don't want to follow German laws? Don't do business here. I started to use WhatsApp when it was not free (is it now?) and Facebook certainly added nothing of value, the data grab is just self serving and illegal.
12. Re:Easy to fix by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 06:08 · Score: 0
  
  "Neoliberal propaganda," nice. You might want to check your teeth, there's a few of The_Donald's fire-orange pubes stuck between them.
13. Re:Easy to fix by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 06:46 · Score: 0
  
  Unlike some countries, you paid per text even nationally in Germany. Well, actually I still pay 0,19 Euro per national text. So it's not difficult to see why Germans moved to WhatsApp.
14. Re:Easy to fix by Guillermito · 2016-09-27 07:07 · Score: 1
  
  I believe it became popular in many countries for two main reasons 1) It allowed to send unlimited messages at a time when telcos in many markets would charge you per individual text 2) Unlike existing alternatives at the time (gtalk, skype) it used your phone number as your account id, so setting up the app was frictionless, specially among non tech-savvy smartphone users.
15. Re:Easy to fix by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 11:34 · Score: 0
  
  u mad libertarian?
  The_Donald exposed your ideology for what it is: a paper tiger with little support from whites and zero support from non-whites.
  Flaccid and sterile, as are you.
16. Re:Easy to fix by houghi · 2016-09-28 00:41 · Score: 1
  
  Laws have changed. International SMS is now limited to 0.08 I think. No such limit for national, so it becomes cheaper to send international.
  This all will depend on country, provider and plan you have. Pre-paid will be different again. It is a shitfuck and you can not really compare things.
  
  --
  Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Seems Like... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 02:35 · Score: 0

Facebook's only real strategy is to take stuff from other people or products.
At least there is one state by vikingpower · 2016-09-27 02:35 · Score: 4, Insightful

having the decency to squarely tell Facebook "you're breaking our laws, stop it or else".

--
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
This is important. by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 02:42 · Score: 2, Insightful

It is not discussed enough, if people have faith in company A and are happy to away their information to that company, that is fine. If company A then gets bought out in a hostile takeover by nasty company B - the original members never signed up to that and everyone should explicitly be made to opt in or all user data should be deleted. These huge companies are getting away with it all the time and posting conditions of service like it somehow absolves them from any laws. Creating a monopoly should be hindered, not rewarded.
1. Re:This is important. by angel'o'sphere · 2016-09-27 06:49 · Score: 1
  
  Under european laws, and with that I mean the individual laws of the countries, not an EU law, it is illegal to snoop on conversations. Regardless if it is via a wire, via radio or via sealed letter.
  Law enforcement needs an order from a judge to snoop on your phone. And here people think a mere company bully can simply do it?
  So even if: It is not discussed enough, if people have faith in company A and are happy to away their information to that company, that is fine. and user agrees to such terms: it is still illegal by the company to do so!
  Look it from this perspective: slavery is illegal, but I agree to be your slave till I die. They catch you having a slave ... the law comes over you.
  Why companies believe they can fiddle with laws by making absurd "end user agreements" is beyond me.
  "I agree that you shoot me, as long as my wife gets $XXX", it is still murder ... even if I agree. And even if you pay.
  
  --
  Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Facebook by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 03:23 · Score: 2, Interesting

Facebook, Microsoft, and Google, all have one thing in common. Their existence is based on extracting information from you. I'm really starting to distance myself. The Internet isn't interesting like it used to be. It seems very monopolized with a herd-like mentality. People seem to have become a product for the Internet, rather than the Internet being a product for the people.
Italian Privacy Authority investigates too by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 04:11 · Score: 0

the Italian Privacy Authority has open an investigation for the same reasons. You can find info at https://goo.gl/QqjXEt ("La Repubblica" online news, italian text)
Easy solution by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 05:42 · Score: 0

Put in a popup to the app telling users that if they don't connect the app to their facebook account, their Whatsapp account will be deleted.
New accounts must connect at account creation.
Problem solved.
1. Re:Easy solution by Anonymous Coward · 2016-09-27 09:02 · Score: 0
  
  I've been using WhatsApp since 2013 (that is before it was bought by Facebook), but I don't have a Facebook account.
  If they force me to create a Facebook profile, it'll stay unused and will contain as much fake information as needed.
helping by Anonymous Coward · 2016-10-02 10:42 · Score: 0

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