Facebook Faces the Canadian Privacy Commissioner

dakohli writes "Canwest's Sarah Schmidt writes that Facebook has until Monday to find a way to fix its 'serious privacy gaps.' And if the Canadian Privacy Commissioner isn't happy with the Web Company's response, then she has two weeks to push it to the Canadian Federal Court in Ottawa. 'A spokeswoman for the commission said it's premature to say whether the feud will end up in court. This would be an international first for Facebook, which has grown to more than 200 million users since its launch in 2004.'"

Re:Just add to the EULA...

[MindlessAutomata]

Or, how about, users research what they are getting into in the first place? Do you seriously expect facebook to go through the law books on every national and local level and state which laws, where, they are in compliance with, AND keep up-to-date on them? That's impossible, and ridiculous. I can't seriously fathom how you could seriously consider forcing someone to go through laws everywhere stating how they are in compliance with them.

Do you own a web site? Any sort of a web site? Good, because that same onus is now upon YOU to do the very same thing, if you collect any sort of user data. Have fun!

Re:Just add to the EULA...

[Taikutusu]

In this case it's probably more akin to -

Given: ZFC
Prove: The continuum hypothesis

Given the legal systems of every country on Earth, I'm pretty sure you can find at least two contradictory laws.

Re:monday morning

[stagg]

You say that like it's a joke, but it wouldn't be the first time a website had been blocked on a national level, and it isn't necessarily a bad idea. ...and somehow I suspect the lost advertising revenues would get facebook's attention long before the calls of irate citizens annoyed the answering service at the Canadian privacy commission. Only one in a thousand people will bother to call the government and complain, most will probably just fill out internet polls on whatever new social networking site they move to. Those advertising dollars are lost immediately though.

Re:Canada? Does it matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm very proud to be one Canadian that is not on facebook.

Re:Canada? Does it matter?

[m0rph3us0]

Um... is anyone aware that in Canada we send sensitive and CLASSIFIED information on our citizens to foreign goverments, and no that information does not get deleted on user request. I think if the policy is good enough for Facebook it's certainly good enough for the CIA/FBI/State Department. We also let foreign government's run experiments with illicit drugs on our citizens, but I'm sure it's far more important for the privacy commissioner to investigate voluntarily shared information with another company than to investigate that. Remember folks: corporations = bad, government = good.

Re:Just add to the EULA...

[ahankinson]

The Government of Canada is currently led by Stephen Harper. The Parliament of Canada is 308 House of Commons members and 105 Senators; the government answers to the House of Commons, and the Governor General asks the membership of the Commons to form a government from their membership which, by custom, is the leader of the majority party. Parliament is above the Government, and serves to keep the Government in check.

Technically, then, the Government is a part of the Parliament, not the other way around.

(Fun fact: There are actually three components of Parliament: The House, the Senate, and the Library of Parliament.)