Facebook loses Belgian privacy case, faces fine of up to $125 million
A Belgian court threatened Facebook on Friday with a fine of up to 100 million euros ($125 million) if it continued to break privacy laws by tracking people on third-party websites.
In a case brought by Belgium's privacy watchdog, the court also ruled that Facebook had to delete all data it had gathered illegally on Belgian citizens, including people who were not Facebook users themselves.
Facebook, which will be fined 250,000 euros a day or up to 100 million euros if it does not comply with the court's judgment, said in a statement it would appeal the ruling.
Also at The Guardian.
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Facebook Loses Belgian Privacy Case
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday February 18 2018, @06:20PM (5 children)
Facebook is an invasive parasitic entity. Always has been. It hoovers up data on everyone it can. The only hoover on the internet that is more efficient, would be Google. WTF are they collecting data on people who have never even registered? That's just wrong.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @08:43PM
well, you cant advertise to people to become a product of your service if you aren't tracking them along everyone else.
otherwise you 'go dark' and are a terrorist that hates america.
facebook is just doing their patriotic duty to american shareholders.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @10:40PM (1 child)
Dan took his turn. Then Ted. Finally, Wilson also took his turn. Dan. Ted. Wilson. Dan. Ted. Wilson. Dan. Ted. Wilson. Dan. Ted. Wilson. One by one, each man punched the object. Dan. Ted. Wilson. Dan. Ted. Wilson. Dan. Ted. Wilson. At last, it broke. The front of the woman's skull broke, causing the skin on her face to droop inward. Wilson, whose punch had caused this miraculous phenomenon, congratulated himself and claimed all five sows as his prize. The contest was not yet over, however...
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday February 18 2018, @11:44PM
...for the woman survived, had a sex change, became a PCP addict, and turned to a life of crime [wordpress.com] to get revenge on all men.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19 2018, @02:21AM
True enough. However all these "fines" seem so arbitrary, reminds me of when Putin took over and all of a sudden all kinds of companies found themselves owing ever more ridiculous amounts of back taxes.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Freeman on Monday February 19 2018, @04:37PM
I eventually broke down and created a facebook account. I pretty much never use it, but I have one. I was against facebook, because I'm a private person. Then, I noted that my name was tagged on so many photos that all of my privacy concerns were already trampled over by a herd of stampeding elephants. So, now I use it upon the rare occasion that I might have something interesting to share with all my "friends". More like acquaintances who could be friends, but that's just semantics.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by BK on Sunday February 18 2018, @07:24PM (6 children)
Does Facebook really know who is a citizen of where?
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Sunday February 18 2018, @07:29PM (5 children)
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @07:36PM (4 children)
Considering they require users to provide valid details or else their account is terminated they can likely determine this. As for other people they track, they can avoid that by simply not doing it.
(Score: 1, Troll) by frojack on Sunday February 18 2018, @08:38PM (1 child)
Unless you are gay. Then you have special rights.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday February 18 2018, @09:14PM
- blicans
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @11:32PM (1 child)
They're not very good at terminating accounts without valid details, however.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19 2018, @11:35AM
They claim to have the capacity however, whether they actually do or not doesn't matter when the law demands they make use of it (they shouldn't be claiming to have a capacity they do not).
(Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Sunday February 18 2018, @08:36PM (3 children)
Define illegally!
I'd be fine Facebook was forced to delete ALL data on people who were not on Facebook. Including and random pictures or comments about such people posted by others.
(It would be great if you couldn't mention anyone unless you selected them from your list of facebook contacts, and each facebook contact had to have a facebook account.)
The problem is that there are idiots who use Facebook as their contact list, knowing full well that they are exposing phone numbers, street addresses, and email addresses of everybody they know. Who then subsequently get all sorts of facebook spam.
I suspect such simple mention, or giving of other people's private information to Facebook by Facebook's own users is not against the law, making it perfectly legal for Facebook to build a shadow account dossier on Me, simply because someone has me in their address book.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @08:52PM (2 children)
i used to yell at people for using the "email to a friend" links when they could just copy and paste the url into an email. why are they adding me to some list? why cant they just email it to me directly?
but that war was lost years ago. i doubt most of the people i know are capable of even emailing anymore.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday February 18 2018, @09:33PM
He was the valedictorian of his high school. He can code in Fortran.
Now he's a college professor
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by frojack on Sunday February 18 2018, @11:24PM
I doubt anything of value was lost.
I still use email, refusing to join any social media crap. But then I still have Gmail accounts, so I'm probably no better than the people I condemn.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @08:37PM (1 child)
That's pocket change to Facecrook. They have no reason to change anything. If the fine is less than $10 billion it will have no effect whatsoever on a multinational corporation.
Want things to change? Toss Fuckerburg in prison for a few decades.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday February 18 2018, @11:10PM
Another suit opened by another Belgian, another fine.
Facebook may end working towards the Make Belgium Great Again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @09:14PM (3 children)
Instant messages sent by Zuckerberg during Facebook's early days, reported by Business Insider (May 13, 2010)
Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuck: Just ask
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Apparition on Sunday February 18 2018, @10:07PM (2 children)
The thing is, people know this, and they just don't care. I've heard "So what? I have nothing to hide," so many times over the past ten years. The war for privacy is truly lost. Even if you're careful and value privacy, you still don't have it because Joe Schmoe and Aunt Susie will happily upload photographs of you on Facebook and see no problem with it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by corey on Monday February 19 2018, @01:30AM
Yeah I have virtually given up trying to convince people to protect privacy due to this argument. They don't see the downstream effects or future possibilities.
Like I did with global warming 5 years ago.
People need to see tangible effects of not acting, till then they have some cognitive dissonance or laziness that persuades them. Or maybe its selfishness or something.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19 2018, @11:46AM
It's not lost, the ones who care about privacy have just as much as ever, it requires the same discipline as ever (just over a different medium). The ones who lost the game are the same ones that would've had customer cards at myriad retail stores in the past. Let them stew in their own juice until the powers that be decide to abuse the collected data for a cleansing purge.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday February 18 2018, @09:29PM (1 child)
I did some work on a tool that visualized all the mentions of Pfizer products on facebook
Contributing to that made me feel I was in league with Satan. I resolved never to do anything like that again
You can prevent a great deal of tracking by blackholing web bug servers in /etc/hosts. Alternatively you can blackhole them with your router
Just one such server will get you a long ways towards where you want to be:
127.0.0.1 ssl.google-analytics.com
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19 2018, @06:42AM
Using a hosts file is a good idea but it's still a blacklist. A whitelist is much more powerful.
One handy whitelist for your browser is https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/requestpolicy/ [mozilla.org]
But then hosts blocks all apps, not just browser.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19 2018, @12:07AM (1 child)
Your privacy is gone .
This is just a money grab and political maneuvering.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19 2018, @06:50AM
Tell me your address. Your ass virginity is gone.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Ingar on Monday February 19 2018, @10:23AM
Facebook is slapping the Law with its own rules and is basing its
appeal on the technicalities of Belgian language law:
procedures should handled in Dutch, French or German and the verdict was
riddled with english terms like 'cookie' and 'browser'.
According to Facebook's lawyer, Mr Lindemans,
"justice needs to be comprehensible to everyone."
Sauce (Dutch):
https://www.techpulse.be/nieuws/176280/facebook-eist-internetsnuffelaar-van-belgische-rechtbank/ [techpulse.be]