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Facebook Wins 'Big Brother' Award in Belgium After Being Declared Worst Privacy Villain (cnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the what-privacy dept.

Facebook won the "Big Brother" award in Belgium on Thursday, after people in the nation reached a conclusion that the social juggernaut is the ultimate privacy villain. "Facebook is a multi-billion dollar company that has one commodity - you!" said Joe McNamee, Executive Director of European Digital Rights. From a CNET report: Facebook, nominated by international digital advocacy group EDRi, won after being criticized for its default privacy settings in a unanimous decision. The social network didn't respond to requests for comment. "Facebook has access to a wide range of personal data, and it tracks your movements across the web, whether you are logged in or not," EDRi said. "And the devil is in the default: To opt out, you are expected to navigate Facebook's complex web of settings."

20 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. Its real simple.... by CaptnCrud · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Nothing is free.

    What gets me, is people that get there underpants all in a twist over "creepers" getting their phone number online.... ....then they plunk family photo's, past schools, past relations, eating habits, geo-location data, moments of zen on the toilet, and just about every bit of trivial/non-trivial info they can muster.... ....to some nebulous company online....

    1. Re:Its real simple.... by thegarbz · · Score: 1

      Random creepers are both hard to track down and get compensation for if they start doing something that has a negative effect on you.

      Facebook on the other hand has billions of dollars and a business address a lawyer can use when they do something against the privacy settings. So while the company is nebulous there's a level of implicit trust backed by the potential of huge payouts when they are provided with information.

    2. Re:Its real simple.... by KingBenny · · Score: 1

      in belgium ....
      that's in belgium ? .... the place where the governments decide its completely within european and moral privacy policy to SELL your medical data to pharmaceutical companies ?
      the same one ?
      impressive

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      Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
    3. Re:Its real simple.... by KingBenny · · Score: 1

      crap ... allow me to doublepost addon/correct myself ... im not sure if that has made it to actual law status but if theres money to be had im quite sure it will go down like most popular laws ... wait until the mediastorm dies, if theres any at all, then quickly pass it while the plebs is sleeping or theres footy on tv

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      Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?
  2. Isn't that the point? by TylerJWhit · · Score: 1

    Isn't sharing information to the masses the point of social networking? Not disagreeing with the article, just merely pointing out that this isn't news. I'd expect Facebook to be the worst in regards to privacy.

    1. Re:Isn't that the point? by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I put Google as the worst. They started as a search engine and making revenue from advertising. Which isn't so bad.

      They expanded into email, which seemed a reasonable way to get more advertising revenue.

      Then they bought online media through Youtube, which was great for their strength in content delivery, and provided more vehicles for ad revenue.

      But somewhere they stopped saying "don't be evil" and now they link your accounts in all the services they acquire, track your dns lookups, your searches, your phonecalls, your contacts, your webpages (through fonts), your map searches, your every location through traffic, they converted your email address into a social media profile which they track as ruthlessly and lucratively as Facebook ever did... They even photograph your home, document your wifi access points etc, etc.

      At least Facebook never pretended to be anything other than an ad-based social media company.

    2. Re:Isn't that the point? by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      You can leave Facebook, you can never leave Google, at least not yet, it would require new privacy legislation. Simple start, would be governments requiring all companies that retain information on citizins to notify each and every citizen about what information is being retained, not just nebulous types but the actual data and how that data is used and to reaffirm permission after that information is provided and this should be required to occur upon a yearly basis. It is most emphatically not meant to be cheap or easy but is there to force a real cost on invading people's privacy to ensure it becomes a significantly less profitable business area. Full, annual individualised privacy disclosures are required and should be legislated and if companies don't like it, they can simply delete the private data being held.

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      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    3. Re:Isn't that the point? by EvilAlphonso · · Score: 1

      You can leave facebook, but facebook still collects your data. Heck, they even collect it if you never joined in the first place.

      BTW, socialist Europe has a unified law on privacy entering into force in 2018. That law stipulates that the user can ask for the exact data the company is storing, and the company must provide the whole data set free of charge. The law also reinforces that the user can request his data to be deleted, and once again this has to happen in a reasonable time frame and free of charge. It also establishes heavy fines for privacy violations, up to 4% of worldwide group revenue in case of data breach caused by negligence.

      At the same time, the current AML legislation/regulation explicitly forbids you from disclosing some user-related information to the user... and to keep all the user data for 5 years after the end of the contractual relationship.

    4. Re:Isn't that the point? by colincarter41 · · Score: 1

      I agree with you Dr. Evil, None is worse than Google, because it has the more information than Other platform. Even they say they cared about your privacy, they linked your account info to its all services. People are spending more time on Google than any other platforms.

    5. Re:Isn't that the point? by Carewolf · · Score: 1

      I put Google as the worst. They started as a search engine and making revenue from advertising. Which isn't so bad.

      They expanded into email, which seemed a reasonable way to get more advertising revenue.

      Then they bought online media through Youtube, which was great for their strength in content delivery, and provided more vehicles for ad revenue.

      But somewhere they stopped saying "don't be evil" and now they link your accounts in all the services they acquire, track your dns lookups, your searches, your phonecalls, your contacts, your webpages (through fonts), your map searches, your every location through traffic, they converted your email address into a social media profile which they track as ruthlessly and lucratively as Facebook ever did... They even photograph your home, document your wifi access points etc, etc.

      At least Facebook never pretended to be anything other than an ad-based social media company.

      But facebook has been abusing the data more, at least in a way that is visible to public.

      You forgot Google also collects you passwords and credit card details in plain text, if you don't make sure you are not logged into Chrome.

  3. I Swear... by Scarletdown · · Score: 1

    And Facebook's representative only had this to declare...

    "Aw, belgium!"

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  4. Its not that bad. by Snufu · · Score: 2

    It's worse. At least Big Brother left the proletariat alone. Big Zucker wants access to all.

  5. Spelling. by msauve · · Score: 1

    "And the devil is in the default: To opt out, you are expected to navigate Facebook's complex web of settings."

    And we all know you can't spell "devil" without "evil."

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  6. Seems odd that yahoo didn't win by grasshoppa · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I mean, they were literally spying FOR big brother and everything.

    I guess maybe the awards were decided prior to recent email scanning revelations?

    --
    Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
  7. User id just for Facebook by myid · · Score: 1

    An online group of people, that I'm a member of, moved to Facebook. So now I have to use Facebook, if I want to keep on reading and writing posts to that group.

    So I created a new user id on my Mac. I use that user id for logging onto Facebook, and sending messages to my Facebook group.

    When I set up the user id on my Mac, I went into parental controls, and made the use of that user id very restrictive. When I'm logged into that user id, Safari is the only app that can run, Facebook is the only website that can be accessed, no Mail or Contacts for that user id, etc. Hopefully that will help protect my privacy.

  8. Re:Facebook? by myid · · Score: 2

    I see your point, but in some cases, online forums are the only alternative. For example, take Slashdot. We see an article that we're interested in, post our comments, and "talk" about it.

    Here's another example: I'm a member of an online discussion group. That group switched to Facebook. So in order to read and write posts to that group, I have to use Facebook.

    As I said in another Slashdot post on this web page, I created another user id on my computer just for Facebook. I made that user id very restricted, which I hope will protect me.

    I wouldn't use Facebook unless I had to, but in this case I do have to.

  9. There's a reason... by Place+a+name+here · · Score: 1

    GTA's Facebook expy is called "LifeInvader".

  10. Re:Facebook? by Nunya666 · · Score: 1

    Here's another example: I'm a member of an online discussion group. That group switched to Facebook. So in order to read and write posts to that group, I have to use Facebook.

    I wouldn't use Facebook unless I had to, but in this case I do have to.

    No, you don't have to. You choose to.

    You had two choices: 1) not use Facebook, and lose access to your online discussion group, or 2) use Facebook and continue to participate in your online discussion group.

    Either way, it was your choice.

  11. Google? by jenningsthecat · · Score: 4, Informative

    This award is only fair if Google won it before Facebook did. As evil as the Zuck is when it comes to tracking people, I'd say Google is far worse. Also, some security extensions in a browser can put a serious dent in Facebook's tracking with almost no detrimental effects to the everyday browsing experience. But if you consistently apply those same safeguards to Google, the Web becomes a whole lot less usable.

    --
    'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
  12. Well deserved award by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 1

    I'm sure Zuck wears it with pride

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