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Facebook Must Stop Tracking Belgian Users, Court Rules (mercurynews.com)
Facebook must stop tracking Belgian users' surfing outside the social network and delete data it's already gathered, or it will face fines of 250,000 ($312,000) euros a day, a Belgian court ruled. From a report: Facebook "doesn't sufficiently inform" clients about the data it gathers on their broader web use, nor does it explain what it does with the information or say how long it stores it, the Brussels Court of First Instance said in a statement. The social network is coming under increasing fire in Europe, with a high-profile German antitrust probe examining whether it unfairly compels users to sign up to restrictive privacy terms. Belgium's data-protection regulators have targeted the company since at least 2015 when a court ordered it to stop storing non-users' personal data.
That fine isn't enough to really deter Facebook, unfortunately. I'm not sure why fines aren't put as a percentage of income.
That said, Belgium is actually standing up to tracking companies.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Welcome to Facebook!
In order to determine if you are a Belgian user, Facebook now requires access to:
* Your photo library
* Your location for the last five years
* Certain medical records
* Microphone always on to detect Belgian accent
* All history of waffle making
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
General Electronic System Tracking All People Online can only be done by the governments. Private companies should not muscle into the Government functions.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Belgium doesn't exist! It's all one big conspiracy! https://zapatopi.net/belgium/
(But still, I'm glad that my government is taking action against Facebook. Let's hope the other EU nations join in on the fun)
....we give people the right to opt-out of having data collected on sites and apps off Facebook being used for ads.”
They don't give anything. First you have to find how to do it. Second, you can only turn off certain things. Third, they automatically opt-in on their own again after turning off
Fourth, I don't even use that crap facebook because I have a life, but they are tracking me. Samsun put a facecrap app on my phone as a default and I can't uninstall it. I disable it but after system updates, it's enabled again.
Wait until another country goes after Twitter. I don't want to see this escalate to a nuclear war.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
That's news. I thought it broke up years ago.
Trust me on this, the Canadian Constitution is very clear.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
OK... where do I sign up to become Belgian! First waffles, now this. Belgium is the place to be.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
However the Euro when it was created was purposely set at a rate higher then the USD mostly for bragging rights.
That's incorrect. The predecessor of the Euro replaced the European Currency Unit (ECU) at parity. The ECU was derived (at parity) from its predecessor, the European Unit of Account (EUA), which in 1975 was set at parity with one IMF special drawing right, which itself was defined via a basket of currencies. That's hardly arbitrary.
Citizen? Resident? The article didn't seem to make that clear.
Belgium's data-protection regulators have targeted the company since at least 2015 when a court ordered it to stop storing non-users' personal data.
Since this is not a serious screenplay, please do not use the B-word on Slashdot!
The next thing you know, you'll be inviting Krikkitmen here!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
The EU politicians don't want to be tracked.
You need to compare it to their profits or revenue for Belguim though. Belgium is small.
You can bet it will be significant to their interest in doing business in Belgium.
And don't think that fine won't raise if they just ignore it. Especially if the entire EU smells a free revenue stream, or it merely becomes EU wide for other reasons.
Windows 10 is data mining and more on mega levels, far passing anything FB is doing.
Jack of all trades,master of none
Come 25 May 2018 and then the GDPR comes into force where you have "Right of access" and "Right to erasure".
So everyone in the EU after that date could request Facebook to provide them with the full set of data Facebook has on them.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
For what? Spreading Trump weirdness?
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I wasn't saying that it was the only factor. However different currencies values can be defined differently, based on just saying when we convert X into Y Y = so much amount.
So we had to merge the German Mark and the French Franc They had their own value however they can be traded with each other. So they decided 2 Mark in and Euro and 6 Franc in a Eruo. They could had made it 1 Mark in a Euro and 3 Franc in a Euro. Where the Euro will be priced at about $0.60 for each dollar. This wouldn't had any major effect on the economy, or even the strength of the currency, As everyone would have twice as many Euros and would need to pay Twice as much for a product.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I always wonder at what point in these European rulings Facebook would just take their cards and go home and shut down all Belgian accounts.
Somehow, I don't think such a thing would go over that well for politicians in Belgium.
Things are going to reach that point for some of these tech companies sooner or later. If a country becomes unprofitable to do business in, then they'll just leave.
"The world is full of fuckin morons."
That at least is correct, in your comment.
Of course I didn't read TFA. But if I have a Facebook account will switching my country to Belgium be of any advantage?