Facebook Says EU 'Right To Be Forgotten' Would Harm Privacy 277
judgecorp writes "The European Commission has proposed a "right to be forgotten" online, which would allow users to remove personal data they had shared. The idea has had a lot of criticism, and now Facebook claims it would actually harm privacy. Facebook says the proposal would require social media sites to perform extra tracking to remove data which has been copied to other sites — but privacy advocates say Facebook has misunderstood what the proposal is all about."
Re:Misunderstood? (Score:5, Interesting)
No, no, you misunderstand. Remember that adage "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail"? Well, all Facebook has is privacy intrusion so of course the only way to enhance privacy is to intrude on it. Makes perfect sense when you think about it.
Re:Misunderstood? (Score:4, Interesting)
Isn't that the exact opposite of Hanlon's Razor?
Better said, and copied right from my old .signature archive:
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary
depends on his not understanding it"
-- U. Sinclair
Re:Misunderstood? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sadly, I think you hit the nail right on the head.
From FB's perspective, this would harm your privacy, because FB will have to find even more creative and treacherous ways to invade user privacy to make up for the fact that users could, at any time, choose to have said data removed. I could easily imagine them creating multiple shell corporations that really "store" your data, and then when you ask to have your data removed they simply say "sorry, we don't store your data, one or more of our many affiliate corporations store and manage user data .. you'll have to submit your requests to them..."
Re:Privacy has nothing to do with it (Score:2, Interesting)
To grant one person the right to not be punched is to deprive another of the right to punch.
Who's rights are more important? The puncher, or the punchee?
Your right to remember me is secondary to my right to not be remembered.
We arent talking about censorship. We are talking about a company datamining my every detail, for profit. So they can market things to me, and sell that info to other people to market things to me. They are essentially selling "me", against my wishes, and with no benefit to myself.
When done to one's physical person its called slavery.
But when done to one's personal information its legal marketing for which one gets absolute zero recompense, and we're supposed to just allow cause its supposedly some form of censorship? Bull.
Re:Misunderstood? (Score:4, Interesting)
They don't make money from violating mine. Then again, I'm not on facebook because I don't want them to violate my privacy. Damndest thing.
Other people can post pictures of you and "tag" you in them, regardless of whether or not you're actually a member of Facebook.
The only way to know for certain that Facebook isn't violating your privacy would be to have access to every single media item on their servers, and manually go through them all to make sure no one else has posted your private information there.
Or, you know, someone could pass a law...
Re:So by the same logic... (Score:3, Interesting)
1) When the invaders come, roll over and become their slaves.
2) When the invaders come, kill them all.
I am almost certain that the saying refers to wars that are motivated as pre-emptive strikes.
Fighting back against invaders is more of a "fighting for freedom" than a "fighting for peace"
Not on FB, but someone else posted my info.... (Score:5, Interesting)
.... and took it upon themselves to post information about me on-line. So as a non-FB user, I have every right to be forgotten when I never gave them (the user or Facebook) permission to put information about me out there. I didn't create an account. I tell everyone I know to not put information about me on Facebook or on any social network, but when someone else takes it upon themselves to post info about me, now FB claims that they own that data.
This is where I have big issues with Privacy laws and companies who data mine and then sell that data.
Don't I have every right to be forgotten, since I went out of my way to avoid being "remembered"?
Re:Misunderstood? (Score:4, Interesting)
Theoretically, you're 100% correct. If it's on an interweb, someone could find it.
In practice, if it's not on fuckyou or tubeface, loan officers and HR drones won't be able to. And they're the ones who can make your life suck.