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German Court Rules Facebook Use of Personal Data Illegal (reuters.com)
A German consumer rights group said on Monday that a court had found Facebook's use of personal data to be illegal because the U.S. social media platform did not adequately secure the informed consent of its users. From a report: The verdict, from a Berlin regional court, comes as Big Tech faces increasing scrutiny in Germany over its handling of sensitive personal data that enables it to micro-target online advertising. The Federation of German Consumer Organisations (vzvb) said that Facebook's default settings and some of its terms of service were in breach of consumer law, and that the court had found parts of the consent to data usage to be invalid. "Facebook hides default settings that are not privacy-friendly in its privacy center and does not provide sufficient information about it when users register," said Heiko Duenkel, litigation policy officer at the vzvb. "This does not meet the requirement for informed consent."
time to cut Germany off the internet
If push comes to shove, Facebook can pull their German servers, and give the middle finger to them.
Plus, FB users agreed to this, and EULAs/TOS agreements are basic law that both parties agreed to.
I bet most those privacy settings don't actually work. At the least they send a flag to Facebook "use alternative methods for securing the same data".
... care to speak up for the users?
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Much like the French judgment that users need to be informed about the use of cookies on websites, all that is going to change in the end is that the users are going to be getting more popups with a refined text that nobody reads to click on to use the services in question.
How do I know this? because it's exactly what I see when connecting to websites that use cookies from France, including Slashdot.
About once a week, when clicking on a frontpage link on Slashdot, I get a "Warning you are in France and need to click on this button stating that you are OK with Slashdot using cookies to track you". It's fracking annoying to tell the truth. Why must I renew my acceptance _EVERY_FRACKING_WEEK?!? Because the stupid law says that "All sites can only keep cookies for a week and must ask again every time the cookie times out".
Clicking every week (which I will do because I want to use Slashdot & that Germans will do because they want to use Facebook) will change precisely nothing but make a bunch of obsessive people who write laws ever so slightly happier.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Most facebook users are retards.
I know of a fb user who was careful not to give her personal information in her profile. She USED to like fb to keep up with friends and distant relations.
After spending the time giving fake DOB, and other information, the fb dipshits - who were told better - wished her happy birthday on her real birthday and blabbed a bunch of other personal information about her.
You can be careful, but other facebook users are morons.
As an experiment and to prove a point, I asked to call up her bank and for all the security questions, I would answer - I wrote them down so that the customer service drone wouldn't think I was holding her hostage.
I answered all of the bank's security questions just from her fb page. SSN? Well, how hard is that to get these days?
Sounds like a nice place to live.
This is how you lose your personal freedom.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Comment removed based on user account deletion
... the tracking continues without any opt-opt options.
that suuports you got there. Or Whether yTou collect any spilled DOG THAT IT IS. IT have their moments declined in market
It's fairly obvious that you can't have informed consent for babies and cats, let alone teens who pretend to be 18.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Install privacy badger it does not eliminate all of the tracking cookie problems, but most of the popups go away,
Given all the legal activism by German courts what can US and multinational brands do?
Move their "German" services to a less legal invasive EU zone like Austria? Switzerland? Namibia? Slovenia? Then sell back into Germany via Germans seeking a service that is not censored by German courts.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Contracts never override Law.
Otherwise Canibalism and Slavery would be legal as long as someone is stupid enough to sign a contract.
"Life is short and in most cases it ends with death." Sir Sinclair
What would really be funny if facebook just denied German access.
Please define personal information. In the age of everything connected, facial recognition, cell phone always on what's personal. We've voluntarily given up the right
to a sense of person and privacy. Facebook takes this to the evil extreme linking you location to your preferences for profiling making your privacy and your personal information their property. you don't have to tell them anything.
I for one welcome this kind of ruling but Facebook is the tip of the iceberg and once companies realized that they can go beyond their modest data collection interests what's to stop any company that has a profile of you, your habits and your locations to sell or misuse it?
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"