Facebook Takes EU To Court For Invading Privacy

Facebook has taken the EU to court for invading the privacy of its employees, Financial Times reported [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source] Monday citing two people with direct knowledge of the matter. From the report: The social media company claims EU regulators have asked broad questions beyond the scope of two ongoing antitrust probes, and it has requested that the General Court in Luxembourg intervene. The EU is investigating both how Facebook collects and makes money from data and whether its Marketplace business has an unfair advantage over rivals in classified advertising. Since March, Facebook has provided the European Commission, the executive body of the EU, with 1.7m pages of documents, including internal emails, in response to multiple requests for information. The EU has made further requests for all documents containing key words and phrases such as "big question," "for free," "not good for us" and "shutdown," according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.

Pot, meet Kettle

[cob666]

That's certainly the pot calling the kettle black!

Re:

[devslash0]

Racist pot, lol.

Re:

[lessSockMorePuppet]

My weed is better behaved and doesn't call anyone names.

LOL

[higuita]

Sure, right! facebook is trying to protect their employees privacy, for sure!! :')

Re:LOL

[duiveltje]

Oh, boy, does Facebook have to learn that countersueing may work in the US but really does not work in the EU.... Costly mistake.

Project, project!

[Carewolf]

Seems to be facebook's motto at this point.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

please don't start the first sentence of your post in the subject line.

So you're

[sjames]

saying that bothers you?

Re: Project, project!

[BAReFO0t]

1. Often, the subject line is both the subject *and* the first line of the comment.
2. Often, there is no point in having a subject line. Or sometimes, only a single line is needed. Slashdot is buggy for not acknowledging those cases.
3. In any case, it is only a problem for you, if you routinely so not even read subject lines, leading to you becoming confused if they become necessary.
4. But mostly, this has just become a stupid snob meme that is currently fashionable, and you do not even know why you oppose

To quote a German comedian

[Opportunist]

That's like a pimp lecturing the pope about morality.

Re: To quote a German comedian

[BAReFO0t]

What's the difference?

Aside from the preference for little boys.

Re:

[Opportunist]

Congratulations, you got the joke. :)

Re:

[rtb61]

It's more like to stupid to breathe. Yes the EU is invading Facebook the corporations privacy, it is investigating them, of course it is invading their privacy. They it will be prosecuting them and about time some executives went to jail for their criminal activities. Clearly a delaying tactic as they attempt to delete incriminating data and shift it back to the corporate USA.

Re: EU can't make money but they sure can take it

[JockTroll]

They didn't even try. To Eurocrats, both computers and the internet were a passing fad. Some East European countries did take it seriously but Western Europe is solidly anchored to the first half of the Twentieth Century.

Re: EU can't make money but they sure can take it

[BAReFO0t]

Sure. Anything is true, if you just believe it ...

But then you're not in reality anymore.

Re:

[3247]

They gave up being able to make software people want a long time ago.
Now they just understand how to regulate stuff until no one wants it.

Nope. Europe was always too good in regulating. Did you know that the first email was actually sent by researchers in France (yes, that's in Europe)? The second email ... well that would not have been a proof-of-concept for research purposes but a violation of the national telecommunications monopoly.

Good luck with that!

[nospam007]

I mean it.

The chutzpah

[OneHundredAndTen]

Facebook complaining about invasion of privacy: a new paradigm of chutzpah.

Lotsa luck with that, Facebook

[Otis B. Dilroy III]

I think that giant social media companies are in for rough decade.

Just press the button after reading the headline:

[BAReFO0t]

https://instantrimshot.com/ [instantrimshot.com]

Rapist becomes the rapee

[Sebby]

Just deserts for the privacy rapists [urbandictionary.com] known as Facebook.

Of course I see no actual violation of their employees' privacy in the summary - only that they've been requested to hand over information related to the ongoing investigation of their raping the privacy of the general public. Perfectly valid requests in my view - there's is no 'beyond the scope' of anything while investigating the Privacy Rapists - nothing beyond how far the Privacy Rapists go in invading people's privacy, anyways.

Pot calling the kett

Don't you love irony.

[www.sorehands.com]

They bitch about privacy, but violate it themselves. Who will watch the watchers?

Re:

[Errol backfiring]

That's an easy one. Facebook watches everyone, so also the watchers.

Privacy?

[pahles]

Not defending Facebook here, but I don't understand. Has the EU invaded the privacy of Facebook employees by asking questions? Facebook can surely deny such request when it DOES invade the privacy of its employees. Why do they need the General Court to intervene? Is the EU forcing them to hand over the documents even it those documents invade the privacy of its employees?