Germany's Federal Cartel Office Claims Facebook 'Extorts' Personal Data From Users (independent.co.uk) 83
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Independent: Germany's Federal Cartel Office is examining whether Facebook essentially takes advantage of its popularity to bully users into agreeing to terms and conditions they might not understand. The details that users provide help generate the targeted ads that make the company so rich. In the eyes of the Cartel Office, Facebook is "extorting" information from its users, said Frederik Wiemer, a lawyer at Heuking Kuhn Lueer Wojtek in Hamburg. "Whoever doesn't agree to the data use, gets locked out of the social network community," he said. "The fear of social isolation is exploited to get access to the complete surfing activities of users." Andreas Mundt, the Cartel Office's president, said last week he's "eager to present first results" of the Facebook investigation this year. Like the EU's Google investigation, he said the Facebook case tackles "central questions ensuring competition in the digital world in the future".
Let's see, judge versus judge... (Score:2)
US Judge: It's totally fine if Facebook is tracking you tighter than we'd let the FBI track Nazis.
German Judge: Stupid Nazi draconian Facebook terms and conditions are an Orwellian situation!
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Please, the east germans were doing mass surveillance before lord admiral zuck was born. Things like FB are old hat to them; though Zuck and co has pretty much perfected it.
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The Lives of Others is a great movie about that:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/ [imdb.com]
The Germans gleefully spied on each other. The Stasi at one point had over 90,000 employees in just East Germany, and over 2 million informants out of a population of about 16 million. That means that every one out of eight East Germans was spying for the government. Germany loves their mass surveillance.
Re:I'm not understanding the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you have lost the plot:
Many Germans died in their extremely prolonged but eventually successful struggle to defeat mass surveillance, and somehow they resent the Americans imposing a considerably worse regime on them.
(The dead are presumably revolving at such high speed in their graves that it is causing a disturbance of the psyche).
I think you will find that quite a lot of the world's population feels much the same, and America's view of the world is not widely shared by others. Most of the world believes that government is a process whereby they collaborate to stop this kind of scummy exploitation by corporations, and not the other way round.
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You do know that the country of East Germany hasn't existed in 28 years, right - and when the wall came down and they merged it was the freedom loving West Germans who took over, right ? Right ?
If anything, the experience of a large number of their citizens who lived under the KGB and the STASI are a big part of why Germany is so obsessive about privacy rights these days - they've experienced the alternative.
Re:I'm not understanding the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, alternatively... In Europe, we actually have pretty strong protections on our privacy, where companies aren't allowed to just grab all the data they can and run with it. Facebook tries to grab all our data and run with it, and unsurprisingly are being found to be outside the law.
Facebook can't do that either. (Score:2)
Or, alternatively... In Europe, we actually have pretty strong protections on our privacy, where companies aren't allowed to just grab all the data they can and run with it. Facebook tries to grab all our data and run with it, and unsurprisingly are being found to be outside the law.
Facebook can't do that either.
You have to agree to it. No one requires you to agree with the terms of service: you just don't get to have service, if you don't.
Just because the Germans haven't been able to develop their own version of Facebook, doesn't mean that they should have any say in how the U.S. version of Facebook is run.
I hope Facebook does the same thing that a lot of other services do, when Europe passes some dumbass law and tries to fine them: pull the heck out of the country.
Remember how well
Re: Facebook can't do that either. (Score:2)
You can disagree with FB, but then you are excluded from many social processes including invitations of your friends and birthdays. This is a real danger for the individual.
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I can see you don't understand, corporate serf.
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So you're fine with corporations and governments (who have more regulations about personal info) spying on you without your consent? Or you'd prefer to read 50 pages of TOS every time you use a website?
i see you have a username with Slashdot. You're fine with the parent company of Slashdot tracking your every move across the internet? They might already be, they just haven't told you.
Re:I'm not understanding the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't paint the German government as the bad guy with your populist straw man argument. The German government claims that facebook is abusing it's market position to force people into terms of use that they wouldn't accept otherwise. This is no different than, say a cable or energy company, abusing a dominant market position to drive prices unreasonably high. Basically it's a monopoly situation and should be scrutinized and penalized as such.
In contrast, before exercising some weak attempts at Euro-bashing you should consider that your American megacorps like facebook pay next to nothing in taxes in the US, because they prefer to be headquartered in Ireland. Something that the European Union is also fighting against.
The "laissez faire" capitalism that is so popular in the US, especially among Republicans promotes small government and power to the corporations. It will not protect the rights of ordinary citizens. Be glad that at least in some parts of the world the government still serves the people.
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Basically it's a monopoly situation and should be scrutinized and penalized as such.
So ...much like the German position on what constitutes beer putting German brewers in a monopoly position, yes?
So the German brewers should be penalized as such, in order to make the German market safe for French beer, yes?
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You compare the entirety of an industry with hundreds of competing individuals with one large social media conglomerate that has a monopoly according to German definitions. If there was such a single and huge beer brewery in Germany, controlling most of the market share, the cartel agency would be after them as well.
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The German market is already safe for French beer. Actually, even safer than for German beer because the German position on what constitutes beer is only valid for beers brewed in Germany for the German market. Import beers have been exempt from this regulation for decades.
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I've heard language like yours before... where was it... where was it.. aah right, I remember.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt01... [imdb.com]
Re: I'm not understanding the problem? (Score:1)
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Re: I'm not understanding the problem? (Score:2)
Other sites (competition) closed down, e.g., StudiVZ, or do not play an important role,e.g., MySpace. Therefore, FB has a monopoly and can force people to accept term which they would not accept when real alternatives would exist. In Germany monopolies are considered bad for obvious reasons. Therefore, they are investigated by the anti monopoly authority.
The new German economic model (Score:2, Flamebait)
1) Pass wierd legislation authorizing huge fines for whatever
2) Levy huge fines against American companies
3) Profit!
Re:The new German economic model (Score:5, Informative)
Here's an interesting difference between USA and Germany:
When Google or Facebook break the law in Germany and are fined for it - and the fines aren't even that high, maybe a couple of days of the company's profit - Americans are outraged. When VW breaks the law in the USA and gets an enormous fine that amounts to the yearly profit of the company, Germans generally agree that VW had it coming.
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Those poor American companies. All they were doing was engaging in unethical behaviour that the weak regulatory culture of the US permits, and now they're not being allowed to do the same thing in Germany, where companies that had to abide by modest standards of acceptable behaviour couldn't compete!
Next thing you know, you'll be saying that Chinese companies can't set up factories in America and employ people for $2/day working 16-hour days and dump their waste products directly in the Mississippi! Af
Simple solution (Score:2, Flamebait)
Just don't sign up; find real friends in the real world -- rather than a thousand people who you think are friends because they know what you had for breakfast.
hyperbolic (Score:3)
I would hope that a regulator would be a bit more conservative about extending its domain where it doesn't have the right to.
Re:hyperbolic (Score:5, Insightful)
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You're blaming Facebook for the fact that your "friend" didn't want you at his wedding?
You do realize... (Score:3)
You do realize...
If your friend didn't bother to contact you personally, and if none of your mutual friends bothered to contact you either, and no one happened to mention the upcoming wedding in your presence...
It may not have been an accidental oversight...
Right?
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It's the same as back in the days when not everyone had a mobile phone. People would send out invites to social events by just texting everyone in their phone's memory, and if you were not in it then you were likely to be overlooked or get a last minute on-the-day email. Not deliberately, but because human nature is forgetful and lazy and 19 out of 20 people they would think to invite are in their phone.
Also remember that in the EU we have positive freedom, which means companies generally aren't allowed to
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I think you missed the part... (Score:2)
I think you missed the part where there was "something of value" involved. Or the part where we were talking about Facebook.
Either way, you missed the boat on one of the major prerequisites for it to be extortion.
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Corresponding with businesses and government is voluntary? Government offices in my country now walk one through their online services, in the office if one is computer illiterate: They hand-over a paper and snail-mail alternative, only when a signature is required.
It's not just online communication that is now "voluntary": I had a problem with my phone service, so I went to the local service branch. I told to phone a number, meaning I had to have a phone to complain that I didn't have a phone. The rea
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So you're fine with being tracked without your knowledge on sites that have nothing to do with FB, Goog or APL (all three tracking your information for their own purposes) asides from having this tiny comment area / like button (it says this even in the summary). Once you have an account, you cannot opt out without going out of your way every time.
Even if you have a techie way with adblock or whatever, do you expect the common person to know about potential privacy issues let alone defend against them?
Ther
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Even voluntary participation has to follow laws. It is that simple.
Re:I am the first in line to hate on Facebook, but (Score:5, Informative)
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In a way it's surprising that the US doesn't have something similar, because in a very pro-capitalist society your personal data is an asset to be owned and monetized. Some people have aspects of their personal data covered by intellectual property laws, e.g. actors and their likenesses, but the average person doesn't seem to have any ownership of their data at all.
Such problems with facebook. (Score:2)
I keep hearing about all these people feeling betrayed and abused by Facebook but what I'm not hearing is these same people deciding to no longer use Facebook.
Take some control of your life, nimrods!
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Well here's one story. I once had a facebook account for some months, but deleted the account when they came up with their "we can do anything"-EULA changes.
I use noscript and have banned facebook scripts.
Still why the hell should i have to do that? I don't know if it's even 100% effective. So how am i supposed to defend myself against that?
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That's why the Germans claim Facebook uses extortion. Apparently it is so hard to leave / never join that it can not be expected from a reasonable person. Hence extortion; users are forced to join Facebook against there will. Not with a gun, but with social pressure.
No, it's not. (Score:2, Insightful)
isn't this argument valid for some other companies as well ???
No, it's not.
It's only valid for companies with deep pockets, which can have money extorted out of them by governments who have basically squelched their technology sector to the point there's no way in hell it could come up with something competitive with the company they are attempting to extort money from.
Re:No, it's not. (Score:4, Insightful)
The issue here is not deep pockets or not, the issue are networking effects that create an defacto monopoly. If you got such an defacto monopoly many people are forced into doing business with you. If people don't like your terms, that can't just switch to your competition, because your competition isn't offering the same network. A company with such a defacto monopoly is not allowed to abuse this monopoly. They are not allowed to use it extend their market share other areas or force terms on users that they wouldn't accept if healthy competetion was present.
NOT optional, user-paid privacy please! (Score:5, Insightful)
I respect that facebook needs to make money. I would like to see a user-paid option, thus allowing me to participate by spending my money to pay my own way, so that facebook can monetize me directly filter out all ads and protect my private info.
Participation was not optional, in my case, if I wanted to keep my high-paying IT job. Our clients used facebook as the sole method for registration and tracking in mandatory activities.
I objected strenuously on principle and offered several workable alternatives, including asking the organizers to make up a fictitious account for me to use (I didn't want to be the one committing fraud) and was told I was being a "P.I.T.A." about privacy, as the whole point was to use a single, consolidated, low-cost method for tracking/reporting registration, participation, etc.
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So? Just create a throw-away email account, use that only for Facebook and put as little info into your profile as you can manage, all work related. Then, all you have to do is delete your account when you're through with it, along with the email address (or, if that's not practical, just walk away from that address) an
Re: NOT optional, user-paid privacy please! (Score:1)
The fact that you think a throw away email address prevents facebook from tracking you, logged in or not, shows how unprepared you are to comment on this subject.
Cookies now include IP and MAC addresses which are correlated by ad servers. Once they get your login once, they can track that ip across other services, many of which serve facebook ads or their subsidiaries and holdings. Statistical models are built to infer habits and profile browsers and devices so they can figure out if it's you even on new de
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I'm talking about somebody who uses it only for work, and only at work. Let them get my IP address and even my MAC address; it's not my computer, not my connection. Once I leave that company, there's nothing left that they can track.
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Facebook, Google, etc. create profiles for everyone they see on the Internet, even people who don't sign up for accounts. Creating an account links his actual identity to that profile, allowing Facebook to tie that anonymous profile to things his friends may have said or posted that included him. As he's forced to log in from various devices, they can figure out if he prefers iOS or Android. By looking at who he associates with, they can make some pretty good guesses about his income and his leanings on var
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Anyway I think all services that are currently paid for with the data they gather about their users should have an option to pay with money. That would include not only Facebook, Google and other Internet services but also Windows 10. Many mobile apps have two options
Germany and your profits (Score:2)
You users expect the same US freedom of speech and freedom after speech they get from a trusted US brand.
Users know what they are signing up for and what they are doing with a US product and service they enjoy and want to use.
Germans reach out to a US brand and want to enjoy and use that brands features and services.
What is the solution given a new digital wall now surrounds Germany?
Create German suppor
After much consideration (Score:2)
Fuck facebook.
Get the hell out of Dodge! (Score:2)