Germany Takes Legal Steps Against Facebook 138
crimeandpunishment writes "Not only are Germany and Facebook not friends, they might end up opponents in a courtroom. Germany has begun legal action over privacy. A German data protection official accuses Facebook of illegally saving personal data of people who don't use the site and haven't given permission to access their private information. Germany, which has also launched an investigation into Google over its Street View mapping program, has some of the strictest privacy laws in the world."
Re:From TFA (Score:4, Insightful)
Not when it is per individual.
It's kind of weird that Germany and Europe are now the safeguards of our privacy. On the other hand, they understand the reasons for that because of history. It seems like every other country in the world let big corporations like Google and Facebook do whatever they want.
Re:the War on Privacy continues.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Its been a long time since I saw such a dickwad move by an MMO company. This rivals Star Wars Galaxies NGE in terms of betrayal of the player-base by Blizzard.
On the plus side, it's likely to result in fewer "dick-waddings" in forum posts. ;)
Considering the data-collection craze... (Score:5, Insightful)
When you think how eager the German government is to collect, filter, file and dissect data passing through the internet pipes, the whole deal feels a bit hollow and like a publicity stunt more than actual concern of their citizens private information. I'd prefer Google and Facebook doing it. I can still NOT give them my data if I so please. It's a bit harder with a Government that badgers ISPs to install sniffing bridges for something not much different from a (warrantless) wire tapping.
Or they just want to eliminate any competition in the field of selling German people's private data, dunno...
Re:From TFA (Score:3, Insightful)
Not when it is per individual.
It's kind of weird that Germany and Europe are now the safeguards of our privacy. On the other hand, they understand the reasons for that because of history. It seems like every other country in the world let big corporations like Google and Facebook do whatever they want.
You are right...except that it wasn't the corporations that destroyed Europe twice in a century. These laws protect the privacy of individuals from corporations and other individuals, but they do nothing to protect the privacy of the individual from the government (the real problem). These laws will do nothing if nationalism surges in Europe again.
Re:Considering the data-collection craze... (Score:1, Insightful)
A government is not one body. Quite a few people are involved and just because some want to collect information it doesn't mean that Germany doesn't care about privacy.
"illegally saving personal data of people who don't use the site and haven't given permission to access their private information"
No, you can NOT not give them your data apparently.
Re:Considering the data-collection craze... (Score:3, Insightful)
Citation please.
Re:the War on Privacy continues.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:From TFA (Score:4, Insightful)
No, they are the safeguards of OUR privacy. If you live in a degenerate country and your government care more about corporations than taxpayers, then you are screwed (you are welcomed to move to Europe... that is what I did :))
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Strictest Privacy Laws (TM) (Score:2, Insightful)
Only if they stop (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Admirable privacy laws (Score:4, Insightful)
That's fairly crazy to me. If it's legal to keep and store data in paper records without a license, I see no reason why a computer should be treated differently - it's just a more efficient way of doing the same thing.
There is a big difference. You said it yourself: Efficiency is the answer. As an example, consider a criminal who looks for potential victims to blackmail. Let's say he has access to huge unrelated data sets about people who work in high government positions or have access to lots of money, who have an alcohol problem, or a money problem, or little children, or a police record of certain nasty habits.
It would take forever to correlate these data sets if they were on paper. OTOH, in a computer DB it'd take you a few lines of SQL and a few seconds to find your victims. Of course, this example is totally made up, but you might be able to map it to a more realistic scenario.
Re:From TFA (Score:4, Insightful)
The corporations bankrolled both world wars and the rise of fascism.
Re:good! (Score:3, Insightful)
I mean, imagine that e-mail had been invented by Twitter, then all e-mail addresses would have been ending in "@twitter.com" and we would all rely on a private company that would have had insight into all our communications. How long would it have taken us to conclude that such a situation is absurd? Five years? Ten years? Forever?
That depends on who you mean by "us." There was once a time where email was confined to a single computer system; people realized that it would be nice to exchange email messages with users of other systems, and so they devised ways to get their computers to interoperate. These days, though, things are very different: Twitter and Facebook do not exist for the purpose of serving their users, they exist to turn ever higher profits, and interoperability would be detrimental to that. The user mindset is also different; instead of asking, "Why can't Facebook interoperate with Myspace?" they instead think, "I have friends who are not Facebook users, I will encourage them to join."
Re:From TFA (Score:4, Insightful)
At least according to our history textbooks, the increasing poverty after the great depression, the very failure of corporations, was a big factor in the rise of fascism. Lots of poor people willing to support anyone for empty promises.
Look at how Saddam or AlQuaida buy the support of the local population by building a few schools and hospitals. If you have the chance to get your kids pneumonia treated in a hospital, you probably wouldn't care much about civil liberties.
Re:Considering the data-collection craze... (Score:2, Insightful)
Besides, if tax dodgers respond to crackdowns by leaving the country, well, good riddance. One way to get rid of a leech is to get rid of them, so at least they're not siphoning state resources away from everyone else. Let them leech off another government instead, if they can (let's see you get better services from a bankrupt government like Greece, where large portions of the populace refuse to pay taxes).
Re:Only if they stop (Score:4, Insightful)
What gives Germany jurisdiction, anyway? Could FaceBook just move a few of their servers?
Holding information on it's citizens, that's what gives Germany jurisdiction.
Re:Only if they stop (Score:3, Insightful)
Holding information on it's citizens, that's what gives Germany jurisdiction.
That's why Germany cares. It doesn't give FaceBook a reason to care what Germany thinks.
Re:From TFA (Score:1, Insightful)
Corporate interests fuelled both world wars. In fact the management of some huge European corporations was changed after them because they were considered complicit in the wars.
Also, it's no use to put constraints on the data collection abilities of governments if they can buy the same data (and more) from unregulated corporates (sometimes, they even get it as a free corporate gift since that's harder to trace than bribes in money)
Re:Considering the data-collection craze... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why would having a "face" matter? The money goes to upkeep roads, law, and civilization in general.
So basically, you are accusing Peer of demanding that the self-declared aristocracy be bound by the same laws as everyone else? And you have the never of accusing him of being full if himself?
And no, in "mos societies" there is no such agreement. Corruption is generally frowned upon.
Re:Considering the data-collection craze... (Score:3, Insightful)
Historically, it was. The key word here is "ancient": Rome was a good place for its time. We nowadays consider Hammurabi's Law - "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth" - to be horribly barbaric; but it's actually advocating the forward-thinking, touchy-feely position that the punishment should be proportional to the crime, rather than whatever the victim's anger drives him to inflict. It's asking for people to become better, just as all those things in the Old Testament people nowadays like to quote as evidence of abrahamic religions being horrible do; and we have become better, which is why the earlier worst acceptable behaviour now seems barbaric. I can only hope that our descendants a thousand years from now will consider us to be barbaric.
The government should serve the people. Hold it to that standard, don't let it just pay lip service to it. Demand that it serve you. The government sold you a line? Okay, hold it to it, don't be satisfied with anything less. Modern governments are better than Roman dictators or Kings of Divine Right, but only because people demanded that they be better. Don't let them or us slip back, make them ever better. Keep the progress going, and maybe - just maybe - we'll someday conquer the stars.