Facebook To Move UK Users To California Terms, Avoiding EU Privacy Rules (reuters.com) 67
Facebook will shift all its users in the United Kingdom into user agreements with the corporate headquarters in California, moving them out of their current relationship with Facebook's Irish unit and out of reach of Europe's privacy laws. From a report: The change takes effect next year and follows a similar move announced in February by Google here. Those companies and others have European head offices in Dublin, and the UK's exit from the EU will change its legal relationship with Ireland, which remains in the Union. Initially, sources briefed on the matter told Reuters about the move. Facebook later confirmed it. "Like other companies, Facebook has had to make changes to respond to Brexit and will be transferring legal responsibilities and obligations for UK users from Facebook Ireland to Facebook. There will be no change to the privacy controls or the services Facebook offers to people in the UK," the company's UK arm said.
And it starts.... (Score:3)
Bye bye GDPR (Score:4, Insightful)
An great way to move away from GDPR.
Re:Bye bye GDPR (Score:5, Insightful)
No more troublesome privacy laws or protections IMPOSED on us by those meddlesome euro types. No. Us brits will take back control by handing it over to Mark Zuckerberg.
Re: Bye bye GDPR (Score:3)
Indeed. Who needs disgusting human rights? Eww!
They stand in the way of freedom!!11oneeleven
The freedom to take other people's rights! And to make glorious profits for the glorious Rockefellerian empire!
Because I think I'm gonna be at top of that. So: Down with me!
Re: Bye bye GDPR (Score:2, Funny)
Re: Bye bye GDPR (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Bye bye GDPR (Score:2)
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Re: Bye bye GDPR (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that EU laws were incorporated in to the UK laws when the UK left the EU last January, the GDPR should still be in effect, right?
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Yes, but instead of the huge market and hitting power that the EU has on the international stage, it's now the UK on its own fighting an economic superpower.
Having that fight is a lot less certain.
Bye bye OmniCorp. (Score:3)
Facebook, as an economic superpower? Bet no one thought they'd hear that.
Re: Bye bye GDPR (Score:1)
What "superpower"?
Call me when Zuckerberg got a squad of soldiers that will take him down, and a military to back them up.
All your money means nothing if nobody accepts it. And in the EU, we currently have higher goals than being pathetic plastic vanity bling whores.
Your US mindset does not apply here, no offense.
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I haven't read it. I assume Facebook lawyers have!
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Besides implementing the regulation at the national level, the bigger issue is what happens with the ECHR, which is what gives the GDPR teeth. Without privacy as a fundamental right, it's hard to see how the UK would be able to provide adequacy. ICO so far hasn't come up with a position on this either, which should be worrying this late in the game.
Re: Bye bye GDPR (Score:5, Interesting)
And the EHCR has nothing to do with the EU. That would be the ECJ and the two are not the same. As it stands we are not leaving the EHCR.
So as it stands Facebook are breaking UK law because California terms of service don't meet UK GDPR requirements.
Re: Bye bye GDPR (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, so far as the current position is concerned. From https://www.gov.uk/guidance/us... [www.gov.uk] we have
"After the end of the transition period, GDPR will be retained in UK law and will continue to be read alongside the Data Protection Act 2018, with technical amendments to ensure it can function in UK law. The UK remains committed to high data protection standards."
But it is more likely that its EU counterpart to be eroded by lobbying pressures than the EU equivalent. We'll have to see what rights and privileges get signed away in the name of trade deals.
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It won't pick up improvements made by the EU now, the stuff that Facebook is really scared of.
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Completely separate from this Farcebook story, the UK and EU are currently negotiating the future of their trading relations.
Whether you agree with the negotiating position taken up by the EU or not, one of the things you have to bear in mind is that the EU have placed certain provisions on the UK when it comes to respecting EU regulation, specifically including the GDPR.
In a nutshell, the EU are saying to the UK, "If you want to retain the right to access our markets and serve E
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Yes, that's the major sticking point at the moment. Word is that there might be a compromise where by an independent body is set up to decide if either side has broken the agreement. Not sure if that will get past the brexit nutters in the Tory Party though.
Either way it's going to be a complete disaster. Facebook has probably already seen rights and freedoms taken away and decided it is worth take the chance that more go, e.g. working time limits on lorry drivers have been lifted and food standard protecti
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Only if the UK still wants them.
EU GPDR rules were incorporated into UK law because the UK was forced to make it law by the EU. At midnight when 2021 starts, the UK is under no such obligation to have the law exist. In fact, I believe a number of EU-enforced laws are set to expire once Brexit is done - without the EU mandating those laws exist, the UK has chosen to simply ge
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Facebook might also know something we don't and be already in bed with the governement with some serious behind the scense lobby to change the laws. I have the impresson the Tories aren't so hot on privacy protections as some other parties.
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Given that EU laws were incorporated in to the UK laws when the UK left the EU last January, the GDPR should still be in effect, right?
Given that much of the EU's GDPR is adapted from the older UK Data Protection Act, this move will not be legal.
However given how badly our gutless wonder of a government the conservative party is, this will be ignored, hell they'll probably hand data over to Facebook if they thought it would get us slightly less of a shafting in a trade deal with the US.
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Until the UK updates the legislation and imposes strict rules about where the data may be stored.
Tax implications (Score:2)
Then they can't count revenue the double Irish way, it should come in as taxable per US law. I'm assuming they do this like many other large businesses. There's no more legal argument left.
A way of ditching facebook ? (Score:2)
Since this is an "agreement" if the user refuses to agree to new terms - will facebook have to close the account ? OK: they will prob send an obscurely worded email/something that says that "you will be assumed agreeing to new terms unless you do XXX", but if you do do XXX - what then ?
Re: A way of ditching facebook ? (Score:3)
Contract changes without the agreement of both parties are illegal here and in any civilized country.
Yes, I can indeed actually end my bank account each time they update ther terms & conditions without giving any further reasons. We got a contract after all, that they are about to break.
They are even forced to cleary and understandably say so in the letter/e-mail.
So hiding that info is literally illegal.
I would not be surprised if they tried anyway. But guess who's in the mood for kicking FB's ass curre
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You can also export all your data from your Facebook account and then close the account.
Just like your bank account, where you can withdraw all your money and close the account.
But in both cases, I don't believe you have an indefinite right to maintain your account on 2020 terms.
And so to annexation.. (Score:5, Insightful)
After the Brexit vote, I really was left wondering "where to from here?".
The general situation of the world at the moment is that it's the size of the "market" and consolidated economic power that makes the most difference these days to what weight class you punch in on the world stage.
The UK was a very potent voice in the EU, having written a sizeable portion of the rules and regulations that formed the basis of EU law. It was definitely a fairly sizeable fish in a big pond, which is an enviable position to be in.
Yes, that came with obligations as well, but it did very nicely out of the deal overall.
Then Brexit. Which the timing couldn't be much worse. We hadn't recovered from the 2009 financial crisis before Brexit threw everything into disarray again. Then COVID, which really stomped on what was left. And now Brexit IN COVID times..
Which will leave the UK with a badly damaged economy, few solid trade deals and being the big fish in its own fishtank.
The big market in the UK is financial services, which the EU is currently looking to on-shore in its own bloc, which will take time, but will happen.
The UK is looking to "innovate" and go high tech. This is without the funding base that China has been putting into place for the last decade or so now to push that avenue, and existing functions inside the USA. So that's pretty much a non-starter with its own resources.
This likely means that the UK will be looking for somewhere to latch on to as an alliance/consolidation to gain protections which it's not really resourced to obtain on its own. Given that there's a huge language commonality with the US, and an increasing cultural draw from that direction, I'm wondering whether it's now just a matter of time until the UK is annexed to the USA.. Events like this, where a 'grab' is being made (the UK still has the GDPR in place, which should prevent this, but it now looks as though the 'hitting power' of the UK isn't sufficient to prevent this grab) just point a little more to this direction.
And so to ARMs. (Score:2)
The UK is looking to "innovate" and go high tech.
Selling ARM Holdings to Nvidia will go a long ways towards that. :-/
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Apple ha everything it needs from ARM. After all it was a founding member or early investor, don't remember.
Re:And so to annexation.. (Score:4, Informative)
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Farage just likes to go around fucking up countries and getting rich.
Re:And so to annexation.. (Score:4, Informative)
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I get the impression that a number of leading Brexiters are Atlanticists. Last time I saw Nigel Farage on the news, for instance, was at an election rally in the US supporting Donald Trump.
Most leading Brexiteeers are tax evaders, the Brexit movement was about hiding their millions from the tax department which they would not have been able to do under new EU regulations coming into effect in 2021.
This is why the latest possible date for Brexit is 31 December this year.
Also it's good to note that leading Brexiteers like Dyson and Ratcliffe have already abandoned the UK.
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Yes. The UK might well want to import foreign experienced high tech personnel from Asia to develop a world class silicon valley. Why latch onto the USA high tech? All those folks in Asia that have recently been discouraged from staying in or moving to the USA by Trump might find a home in the UK. Better do it soon as there's likely to come changes with the new US administration, though it's early times.
The main points of Brexit was to get rid of immigration and bring England back to its rightful influence as a world power from the days of British Empire. As the latter won't happen, they sure have to focus on anti-immigration now.
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The main points of Brexit was (sic) to get rid of immigration and bring England back to its rightful influence as a world power from the days of British Empire.
The main goal of many brexiteers was to keep brown people away, people with certain religions away, people who might not vote Conservative away and to keep away people who did not speak English. Farage, at one point, described how scary it was when he got onto a train and did not understand what some people were saying to each other. People from the far east have lighter skins, don't generally pray 5 times a day, are often very enthusiastic capitalists and often speak very good English, even when drunk.
Th
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I'm wondering whether it's now just a matter of time until the UK is annexed to the USA
It's all beginning to make sense. First the surveillance, now this.
Welcome to Airstrip One.
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After the Brexit vote, I really was left wondering "where to from here?". :P
Many British expats like Madeira, Portugal
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"The UK is looking to "innovate" and go high tech."
The UK just doesn't value tech enough to develop a significant hi tech industry. If you're talented and intelligent you become a lawyer, an accountant or a banker.
If you're a programmer/ Computer Science grad in the UK, the norm is to be sneered at as if you clean toilets or something (and I talk from experience).
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"The UK is looking to "innovate" and go high tech."
I think they burned that boat after WW2 by dismantling everything at Bletchley and telling the people to never talk about it again. And also not running Turing into the ground. I always think UK could have been world's leading computer science and technology power.
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Out of the frying pan, into the fire (Score:3)
The UK was a very potent voice in the EU, having written a sizeable portion of the rules and regulations that formed the basis of EU law. It was definitely a fairly sizeable fish in a big pond, which is an enviable position to be in.
This is so true. Brits gave up the bird on hand, in hope for catching two birds in the bush.
There may not even be a UK a few years down the road. How long would Scotland and North Ireland wait before leaving UK and go back to EU?
In the end only "Small Britain" remained and ended up becoming a vassal of the US would be an ironic outcome for Brexit.
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Wow. You make it sound like Brexit was a really stupid idea.
I've asked several Brexiteers how they personally will benefit from Brexit and so far none of them have come up with anything credible. On the other had, I see a lot of my rights have now been torn up.
Ok, time to hunt down the terrorist Zuckerberg (Score:2, Troll)
Good luck if he ever flies over here.
And Facebook will be outright banned. Irish headquarters raided.
Yeah, we will do that. All of the EU stands behind this, make no mistake. Nobody will shed a tear. FB will be replaced by sometbing better... in a day. Play time's over.
You forgot sarcasm tags (Score:2)
Hence the downmods. No one will do shite. The average person isn't a techie and no one speaks for "all of the EU".
Tax implications? (Score:3)
I know FB, like others, have fake operations in Ireland for tax purposes, but in this case, with moving people from the UK, who are under the fake Irish HQ, does that mean these "assets" will now be in the U.S. and subject to taxes?
California Terms (Score:3)
OK to poop in London streets now?
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ROFL that is just silly (Score:2)
Facebook will shift all its users in the United Kingdom into user agreements with the corporate headquarters in California, moving them out of their current relationship with Facebook's Irish unit and out of reach of Europe's privacy laws.
In Europe for basically everything the law of the place you are living applies.
That move is completely unenforceable. No idea what FB lawyers and management are thinking.
Controls != enforcement (Score:2)
Some nice precise wording from FB. No, the controls won't change, but Facebook's legal obligation to adhere to them sure does. This is like the digital equivalent of placebo buttons: https://edition.cnn.com/style/... [cnn.com]
Stabbed you from another country sorry... (Score:2)
This is essentially the equivalent of stabbing somebody, and then handing a note saying that even though you holding the knife did the stabbing, it was technically done on behalf of someone in another jurisdiction and thus you can't be arrested.
to me it's pretty simple if you're flipping here you'ee here.
I'm tired of this "I exist in every jurisdiction simultaneously bs".
I guess Facebook paid off California... (Score:2)
But, this is hardly likely to go down to well with the Uk government. It will want itâ(TM)s own privacy rules one would expect, what with Brexit etc.
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But, this is hardly likely to go down to well with the UK government.
I don't think that this will be a consideration after Brexit.
#ProjectReality (Score:3)
I gave up my Facebook account straight after the Cambridge Analytics data leak.
The loss of data protection was yet another one of those predictions dismissed as fear mongering by the leave campaign that have subsequent happened.
Expect more losses to come pass, starting with fresh food shortages in January.
How long until .. (Score:3)
How long until they simply pass a law that machines containing UK citizens must physically be within the UK or EU zone.
This might be akin to an arms race
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That law already exists in the EU. This is about the UK leaving the EU and Facebook shouting "Finally! I can fuck the users again. *reaches for condom packet*"
This is a Devious Con Job (Score:2)
In this instance, Facebook are using the UK as an experiment... They are trying to unilaterally re-write international law to their benefit, banking on the fact that the UK will "allow them to do it" on the thinking that because the UK is working on a trade deal with the United States, the UK will simply roll over and allow F
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This is why I thin