Facebook faces class action suit over EU privacy laws | Hacker News Reader

Facebook faces class action suit over EU privacy laws

bbc.com

64 pointsdataker11 comments

So we are talking about, what, 13, 14 million dollars plus maybe court expenses, naively guessing? In any case, it's a bigger step for the people than it is as a harm for FB. I hope cases like this eventually make a difference in the course of tech evolution, if that's even a correct sentence. Power to the people, so to speak.

Court could order Facebook to change the Like button.

...to a Meh button?

No, the problem is that it isn't only a button, it's a tracker and it breaks EU-law. Right now it is "meh - other people's, other countries privacy laws" from FB, we'll see if the EU stands up for European people against US data collection without permission.

I honestly hope this damages FBs reputation and leads to a decline in user numbers if only for other (better, I hope) service to emerge. Something that has a moral/ethical compass.

To remove any tracking. Changing the image & JS to a cookie-less domain. To have it only send data when the user clicks on it.

Or at the most extreme, to disable the Like button entirly.

I'm not sure about the intricacies of Austrian law, but I remember quite a few cases in consumer law where after an initial court case, thousands of other people used it precedent to get similar compensation. Not sure if that would include all Facebook users in this case, or only people who deleted their account as this plaintiff did.

It's also part of a larger effort to get a ruling on Facebook's use of the 'safe harbour' provision. If that is successful, FB does have quite the problem.

sure

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp_v_Commission

all in all almost $3B in fines.

This isnt FCC/FTC fining AT&A spare change for stealing billions. EC doesnt fuck around.

Sure, but this lawsuit wasn't launched by the EC.

Is this only about facebook tracking users via the like buttons on websites?

If so, I'm expecting the same reaction in the future about google analytics.

From the other hand, {facebook,google,random company} did not force someone to put the appropriate {buttons,code} in their site. Me thinks there's going to be some kind of settlement without too much fuss and they'll keep doing business as usual for an even more sucky web.

>>If so, I'm expecting the same reaction in the future about google analytics.

1) Google analytics is a service for tracking your visitors behavior.

2) Facebook like button is a like button.

You would be surprised if the "like button" silently tracked your visitors behavior -- just as you would be surprised if the "analytics script" silently liked googles own facebook page.

>>From the other hand, {facebook,google,random company} did not force someone to put the appropriate {buttons,code} in their site.

They are not getting sued for forcing someone. They are getting sued for adding unwanted/unadvertised functionality that undermines the right to privacy into their service.

They/Schrems have been at it for a while now. They initially tried to go through the Irish DPC (Data Protection Commissioner)[1] but that wasn't very fruitful. In 2013 they issued complaints in 3 different countries. Again no outcome[2] (see 'reactions'). Now they're at this lawsuit[3] regarding the following violations:

   - Data use policy which is invalid under EU law
   - The absence of effective consent to many types of data use
   - Support of the NSA’s ‘PRISM’ surveillance programme
   - Tracking of Internet users on external websites (e.g. through ‘Like buttons’)
   - Monitoring and analysis of users through ‘big data’ systems
   - Unlawful introduction of ‘Graph Search’
   - Unauthorised passing on of user data to external applications

Some more information about the suit can be found here https://www.fbclaim.com/ui/page/faqs

[1] http://www.europe-v-facebook.org/EN/Complaints/complaints.ht...

[2] http://www.europe-v-facebook.org/EN/Complaints/PRISM/prism.h...

[3] http://www.europe-v-facebook.org/EN/Complaints/Class_Action/...

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