Upcoming EU data law will make Europe tricky for Facebook EU-ro-crats are mulling new data protection laws that could make Europe a hostile place for Facebook and other social networks. The EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding and the German Federal Minister for Consumer Protection, Ilse Aigner, met in Brussels for a consultation this week to draw up proposals for the EU's new data …
What ever the new rules are, facebook will just add a splash screen next time the user logs in asking them to accept them. What ever agreement facebook is required to get. 99% of users will just tick the box and business as usual.
It's sad and I won't be one, as I dont' use fb. But tru non the less. most people are stupid :)
Good for the EU, and good for Reding and the other commissioners involved. It CAN work if it's well thought-out:
1) have the wording on any splash screen enforced by the EU so instead of 20 pages of unintelligible legalese there are simple statements like "I allow FB to pass on / sell my personally identifiable data (Y/N)"
2) make use of the fact that FB can technically work without personal data being divulged to 3rd parties, so users can click 'N' and still access FB
I'm British, but live in the US, so if I chose to identify myself to a social networking site as being "European", could I then have the "benefit" of EU data protection law? And what would stop every man and his dog claiming to be from Europe? Apart from basic dishonesty.
An IP address is no guarantee of national origin or residence. Even my so-called friends couldn't be used to figure out my place of residence.
Yes, a stupid question, I know.
They can get Facebook/Google etc because they have an Eu office in Ireland.
If Facebook (Bermuda) is using data centers in Russia to serve web pages to a european how exactly is the Eu data protector going to enforce it? Invade Russia, threaten to cut off trade relations with the USA?
They don't block teh FB website, they block any funds transfers from EU-based advertisers to any FB account. I believe it could be both legally enforceable AND effective since FB either complies (and gets a reduced ad revenue in teh EU because of less data available), or refuses (and loses it's EU revenue stream altogether)
I'll be impressed if they actually make this stick.
Imagine that Facebook adds a new screen when people login telling them that they have to accept the terms and conditions before they can continue. Ideally they would make their T&Cs about 2000 paragraphs, and in a window about 30 chars wide by 10 lines.
How many Facebookers are going to say no? What would the law have achieved?
Now, if they have to ask you every single time they want to give away / sell your data, maybe people will get fed up with it (although obviously it will be "Europe's fault!), but probably Facebook will still make it a requirement to use thier system, so people will still say yes.
The key is the reference to "doing business in the single market". This is where the EU is the 800lb gorilla and why it took on Microsoft and won and why Paypal had to set up a subsidiary in Luxemburg and apply for a banking licence.
The law only seems to be uniting the disparate privacy and data protection laws of the various member states. It is already the legal position in Germany. It should also be noted "click through" notices do not count as providing informed consent which is why Microsoft and Apple EULAs are not valid in Germany.
Aigner seems to be on a personal vendetta against Facebook but Reding has a good track record of taking on the mobile industry and forcing through max charges for mobile roaming. Cheers, Viviane.
"EU law will be enforced even if the company is based in a third country and has its data centres outside the EU, the statement reaffirmed."
Either the EU is going to create the Great Firewall of Europe, or this is a totally lost cause. It may cause Facebook, etc. to move their datacenters and other points of presence out of Europe, though. At least they won't have those pesky jobs... ;)
-d
Once a ruling is passed that any entity in the EU which allows its network to directly connect to facebook.com is going to get clobbered with a fine of a few tens of millions, the problem is solved.
If anyone is prepared to set up VPN links and use gateways in order to get their fix of facebook, then they are clearly aware that they are stepping outside the boundaries of EU regulation and are implicitly consenting to the consequences. I estimate that as many as 0.1% of facebook users would have the technical ability and the inclination to put in place such a workaround.
3rd parties, i.e. say a american or canadian friend upload my contact details (it's already happened) do I have the right to demand that FB remove it? I hope so I really hope so because I hate social networking because it invaids my privacy. I tell the world what I want when I want I don't like it working the other way round.
This should be a really major issue, and its about time it's addressed by DP rules. Networks (and advertisers / business in general) should be fined till they cry for using or publishing information or details for those who have not given their consent. So no more 3rd party address book dumps or photo tagging on facebook. If the information is not confirmed as their own by the user uploading it, and it does not match any other user on their database, it doesn't get published, retained or mined. Easy enough really.
One day the EU might wake up to the fact that while it can confidently dictate life to the 500 million folk held captive in its lumbering, illegitimate oligarchy, if it tries the same with the rest of the world it will be like walking ahead of a Ferrari with a red flag.
We can see this clearly in the fallout from the EU's cynical efforts to bribe its smaller 'States' into subservient allegiance with obscene handouts and manipulated, unrealistic loans, creating an eventual economic disaster that could have been easily foretold twenty years ago by Monty Python's ex-parrot.
Sadly for the self-appointed commissars' grandiose ambitions, the real world wants a return on its investment; it is not interested in propping up their collapsing 'superstate' construct. Neither, I suspect, are the 500 million inmates who have never given them a mandate to build such a thing.
I cannot see Facebook and its multi-million worldwide followers obediently kow-towing to this clapped-out bunch of strutting buffoons. What will they do? Ban it? Perhaps they are already following orders from the very large country to the east that they are currently on their knees to for money to bail them out of the financial mess they have got themselves into. The '800lb gorilla' might soon be dancing to the tune of an inscrutable organ grinder.
This issue is best resolved by those who really do have power over Facebook - its customers. And the myriad web-based forums that can advise them. "More laws, less justice" my Mother used to say. And there are certainly plenty of laws in the EU.
no way this holds water under free trade trade agreements , but the legal battle will be long and arduous. As such goog and FB pony up some billions and the EU drops the idea or waters it down so heavily that it is easily bypassed.
:tinfoil: etc etc etc, but whassisnames scalpel seems the obvious here
Good point. The EU does seem a bit short of cash at the moment. This action also makes the EU seem wonderful and noble in the eyes of the peasants, creating the illusion that it actually operates for their benefit rather than its own self-importance. I seem to recall the 'brave stand' they took against Microsoft achieved in reality precisely nothing, apart from a loud fanfare of Euro trumpets and a large hole in taxpayers' pockets.
"Look Mildred, we can choose a browser, thanks to the noble and wondrous EU."
"What's a browser, Stan?"
"That thing you go on Facebook with."
"I thought it was called Windows."
Actually Mildred, it is called unutterably pompous stupidity. And this seems much the same. And your Stan's paying for it, so bang goes your new winter coat. Still, look on the bright side - how much worse it would be if idiots like you were actually allowed to vote for who runs this noble and wondrous EU.
rather than benevolent «intelligent creation», is shown to be, if not irrefutably true, at least not entirely implausible : the bureaucrats of the European Union actually seem to be considering doing something that would benefit consumers, rather than transnational corporations ! Amazing, I agree, but it has in fact been done before in the Windows-IE bundling case. Now if only the Commission could be induced to address the hanky-panky that lies behind the current quasi-monopolistic situation with respect to operative systems on desktops and laptops for the general public....
Henri
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