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WhatsApp, Gmail Roped Into Tougher EU Privacy Proposal (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the some-concerns dept.

Online messaging and email services such as WhatsApp, iMessage and Gmail will face tough new rules on how they can track users under a proposal presented by the European Union executive on Tuesday. From a report: The web players will have to guarantee the confidentiality of their customers' conversations and ask for their consent before tracking them online to serve them personalized ads. The proposal by the European Commission extends some rules that now only apply to telecom operators to web companies offering calls and messages using the internet, known as "Over-The-Top" (OTT) services, seeking to close a perceived regulatory gap between the telecoms industry and mainly U.S. Internet giants such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft.

7 of 36 comments (clear)

  1. Good rules to play fair by victorsosa · · Score: 3, Insightful

    These are good rules example to play fair. Everybody need to start copying this law too. Big services need to guarantee the confidentiality of their customers' conversations

  2. Be careful what you wish for... by Mhrmnhrm · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... Well, we'd love to comply with your potentially-lawful request and EU-search-warrant-equivalent, but in order to comply with your conversation confidentiality and privacy rules, we had to create encryption schemes designed from the very start to be unbreakable because we don't have the keys, nor a way to download them.

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    1. Re:Be careful what you wish for... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What's wrong with that? Privacy is much more important than the ability for law enforcement to read conversations, especially if creating that ability involves creating lots of potential for abuse.

  3. Like the cookie law? by allo · · Score: 2

    Will we get banners "with visiting the site, you accept that everything you do is monitored and stored forever in the archives of google and the NSA"? Or do they actually ask for consent and accept a no?

  4. Dialog by Luthair · · Score: 2

    Can We Track You

    Yes | Delete Account

  5. Re:Aren't there real problems in Europe to focus o by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 2

    Privacy impacts every one.

    Putting into perspective, fewer people are directly impacted by the crimes of your "millions of young angry immigrants in Europe" than are struck by lightening. So whereas finding the bad eggs is important, it isn't so important that the government shut down everything else until we round them all up and not tackle any other issues. A functional government can handle multiple things at a time.

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    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  6. Re:Aren't there real problems in Europe to focus o by Schmorgluck · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We've already seen then commit numerous crimes, and even many serious and violent attacks that have resulted in the deaths of many innocent European citizens.

    Citation needed.

    I expect to be vilified for this, accused of shutting down the debate with that "citation needed" thing, but seriously, I couldn't care less. I reject the "post-factual" paradigm, I only accept debate based on actual facts, not fantasies nor distorted "could have been" stories.

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