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Leaked Documents Reveal Facebook's Global War On Data Privacy Laws (theguardian.com)
"Facebook threatened to pull investment projects from Europe and Canada if lobbying demands from COO Sheryl Sandberg were not met," reports Business Insider, adding "Canada buckled immediately."
And that's just the beginning. The Observer reports: Facebook has targeted politicians around the world -- including the former UK chancellor, George Osborne -- promising investments and incentives while seeking to pressure them into lobbying on Facebook's behalf against data privacy legislation, an explosive new leak of internal Facebook documents has revealed. The documents, which have been seen by the Observer and Computer Weekly, reveal a secretive global lobbying operation targeting hundreds of legislators and regulators in an attempt to procure influence across the world, including in the UK, US, Canada, India, Vietnam, Argentina, Brazil, Malaysia and all 28 states of the EU...
The documents appear to emanate from a court case against Facebook by the app developer Six4Three in California, and reveal that Sandberg considered European data protection legislation a "critical" threat to the company. A memo written after the Davos economic summit in 2013 quotes Sandberg describing the "uphill battle" the company faced in Europe on the "data and privacy front" and its "critical" efforts to head off "overly prescriptive new laws...." John Naughton, a Cambridge academic and Observer writer who studies the democratic implications of digital technology, said the leak was "explosive" in the way it revealed the "vassalage" of the Irish state to the big tech companies. Ireland had welcomed the companies, he noted, but became "caught between a rock and a hard place... Its leading politicians apparently saw themselves as covert lobbyists for a data monster."
A spokesperson for Facebook said the documents were still under seal in a Californian court and it could not respond to them in any detail: "Like the other documents that were cherrypicked and released in violation of a court order last year, these by design tell one side of a story and omit important context."
And that's just the beginning. The Observer reports: Facebook has targeted politicians around the world -- including the former UK chancellor, George Osborne -- promising investments and incentives while seeking to pressure them into lobbying on Facebook's behalf against data privacy legislation, an explosive new leak of internal Facebook documents has revealed. The documents, which have been seen by the Observer and Computer Weekly, reveal a secretive global lobbying operation targeting hundreds of legislators and regulators in an attempt to procure influence across the world, including in the UK, US, Canada, India, Vietnam, Argentina, Brazil, Malaysia and all 28 states of the EU...
The documents appear to emanate from a court case against Facebook by the app developer Six4Three in California, and reveal that Sandberg considered European data protection legislation a "critical" threat to the company. A memo written after the Davos economic summit in 2013 quotes Sandberg describing the "uphill battle" the company faced in Europe on the "data and privacy front" and its "critical" efforts to head off "overly prescriptive new laws...." John Naughton, a Cambridge academic and Observer writer who studies the democratic implications of digital technology, said the leak was "explosive" in the way it revealed the "vassalage" of the Irish state to the big tech companies. Ireland had welcomed the companies, he noted, but became "caught between a rock and a hard place... Its leading politicians apparently saw themselves as covert lobbyists for a data monster."
A spokesperson for Facebook said the documents were still under seal in a Californian court and it could not respond to them in any detail: "Like the other documents that were cherrypicked and released in violation of a court order last year, these by design tell one side of a story and omit important context."
This news should have people all over the world protesting in the streets against corporate interference in governance, and Facebook should wake up tomorrow to find at least 90% of their user base simply gone. If people had any sense, knew what was good for them, and had the will to act on the knowledge, Facebook would be a fucking ghost town within a month and entirely dead within a year.
What's almost certain to happen instead is two or three news cycles of feigned outrage on the part of governments, a similar period of feigned contrition on the part of Facebook, people swearing off Facebook for a week, and then... nothing. Business as usual will continue; what should be a brick wall that stops Mark Fuckerberg dead in his tracks, will be a minor speed bump on the road to complete abolition of personal privacy.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
I normally like the Guardian, but I'm annoyed they didn't mention the names of the ministers in Malaysia and Canada who immediately buckled.
It's a bit more than that. Facebook makes interfences about you based on similarities between the data it has on you and other people. That projection data profile is what it sells. If that assessment suggests to your insurer that you are a higher risk, there's nothing you can do about it, even if the alert is false.
This is where the privacy battle is going to be. If you have a smart meter, your high resolution consumption pattern may suggest that you're growing or manufacturing something illegal - so probable cause. The ensuing no-knock invasion could leave you dead due to a false positive. Without that smart meter, no suspicion, no probable cause, no warrant.
It's time for Zuckerbook to DIE, plain and simple. Start by deleting your Facebook account and going back to actually being social with people you actually know.