Belgium's Privacy Protection Commission says that Facebook tramples on European privacy laws by tracking people online without their consent and dodges questions from national regulators. They have issued a set of recommendations for both Facebook, website owners and end users. Net-Security reports: "The recommendations are based on the results of an extensive analysis (67 page PDF) of Facebook's revised policies and terms which were rolled out on January 30, 2015. The analysis were conducted by the inter-university research center EMSOC/SPION, which concluded that the company is acting in violation of European law because Facebook places too much burden on its users to protect their privacy, and then doesn't offer simple tools and settings to do so, and sets up some problematic default settings. They also don't provide adequate information for users to make informed choices.
I'll assume that once TPP is in effect. Facebook will sue the Belgium government.
[2nd Editor's comment: Belgium shouldn't be affected by any trans-pacific agreements - unless Belgium has significantly changed its borders while no-one was looking. Perhaps kaszz meant the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 20 2015, @05:21PM
If Hoegaarden is the beer you remember from Belgium then, as a Belgian, I feel sorry for you.
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Wednesday May 20 2015, @05:39PM
As US citizen who has traveled there(and most of Europe), I concur.
From the perspective of a beer drinker, Belgium is a heavenly country to tour. (there are many attractions other than just the beer!)