Meta Threatens To Pull Facebook and Instagram From Europe If It Can't Target Ads (itwire.com) 252
"Facebook is threatening it will simply pull out of Europe altogether if it is no longer able to share data about European users with its U.S. operations, applications, and data centres," reports ITWire.
It's customary for regulatory filings to preemptively declare a wide variety of possible future hazards, and in that spirit a recently-filed Meta financial statement cites a ruling by the EU's Court of Justice (in July of 2020) voiding a U.S. law called the Privacy Shield (which Meta calls one legal basis for its current dara-transferring practices). Though courts are now determining the ruling's ramifications, ITWire notes that "with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) well in force, the U.S. Privacy Shield principles were found non-compliant and consequently invalid." So while that ruling affects every American company, including cloud companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, it's Facebook/Meta that "says stopping transatlantic data transfers will have a devastating impact on its targeted online advertisements capabilities."
Read it yourself, in Meta's own words:
"If a new transatlantic data transfer framework is not adopted and we are unable to continue to rely on Standard Contractual Clauses [now also subject to new judical scrutiny] or rely upon other alternative means of data transfers from Europe to the United States, we will likely be unable to offer a number of our most significant products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe, which would materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations."
Of course, the filing also cites other hazards like the possibility of new legislation restricting Facebook's ability to collect data about minors, complaining that such legislation "may also result in limitations on our advertising services or our ability to offer products and services to minors in certain jurisdictions."
And in addition, "We are, and expect to continue to be, the subject of investigations, inquiries, data requests, requests for information, actions, and audits by government authorities and regulators in the United States, Europe, and around the world, particularly in the areas of privacy, data protection, law enforcement, consumer protection, civil rights, content moderation, and competition..."
"Orders issued by, or inquiries or enforcement actions initiated by, government or regulatory authorities could cause us to incur substantial costs, expose us to unanticipated civil and criminal liability or penalties (including substantial monetary remedies), interrupt or require us to change our business practices in a manner materially adverse to our business, result in negative publicity and reputational harm, divert resources and the time and attention of management from our business, or subject us to other structural or behavioral remedies that adversely affect our business."
(Thanks to Slashdot reader juul_advocate for sharing the story!)
It's customary for regulatory filings to preemptively declare a wide variety of possible future hazards, and in that spirit a recently-filed Meta financial statement cites a ruling by the EU's Court of Justice (in July of 2020) voiding a U.S. law called the Privacy Shield (which Meta calls one legal basis for its current dara-transferring practices). Though courts are now determining the ruling's ramifications, ITWire notes that "with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) well in force, the U.S. Privacy Shield principles were found non-compliant and consequently invalid." So while that ruling affects every American company, including cloud companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon, it's Facebook/Meta that "says stopping transatlantic data transfers will have a devastating impact on its targeted online advertisements capabilities."
Read it yourself, in Meta's own words:
"If a new transatlantic data transfer framework is not adopted and we are unable to continue to rely on Standard Contractual Clauses [now also subject to new judical scrutiny] or rely upon other alternative means of data transfers from Europe to the United States, we will likely be unable to offer a number of our most significant products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe, which would materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations."
Of course, the filing also cites other hazards like the possibility of new legislation restricting Facebook's ability to collect data about minors, complaining that such legislation "may also result in limitations on our advertising services or our ability to offer products and services to minors in certain jurisdictions."
And in addition, "We are, and expect to continue to be, the subject of investigations, inquiries, data requests, requests for information, actions, and audits by government authorities and regulators in the United States, Europe, and around the world, particularly in the areas of privacy, data protection, law enforcement, consumer protection, civil rights, content moderation, and competition..."
"Orders issued by, or inquiries or enforcement actions initiated by, government or regulatory authorities could cause us to incur substantial costs, expose us to unanticipated civil and criminal liability or penalties (including substantial monetary remedies), interrupt or require us to change our business practices in a manner materially adverse to our business, result in negative publicity and reputational harm, divert resources and the time and attention of management from our business, or subject us to other structural or behavioral remedies that adversely affect our business."
(Thanks to Slashdot reader juul_advocate for sharing the story!)
DO IT. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:DO IT. (Score:5, Insightful)
I suggest doing this across the world.
I might even go back again.
Maybe.
Re:DO IT. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that but it would leave the European market open to a competitor who could grow a big enough userbase that, if providing a better more ethical product could crush Facebook globally.
This is a great thing. The EU should 100% call their bluff and encourage them to do it.
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Re: DO IT. (Score:5, Informative)
You're thinking Anglosphere. Most of the world, including most of EU is not native English. Weibo for example is nonexistent outside Chinese language communications, while Vktontakte is overwhelmingly Russian. Former only exists because Facebook wasn't allowed to monopolize the Chinese market, while Vvktontakte's main advantage is that it made it to their domestic market and grew as the mainline social media before Facebook got a meaningful Russian language service.
There are plenty of local networks who are currently crushed by de facto monopolized social media market in their nations, that would very quickly pick up the slack should Facebook leave. Because Facebook isn't actually offering anything unique other than the large userbase due to being the first mover in many nations or having bought out the competition (i.e. instagram, whatsapp) where it wasn't.
Notably, this is why it isn't allowed to move data. For example, when it bought out whatsapp, to assuage monopolization fears it had to agree to certain terms in the acquisition. These are the terms that Facebook is now complaining about.
Re: DO IT. (Score:3)
Re: DO IT. (Score:5, Informative)
You're confusing market cap with innovation and the ability to serve customers and achieve their goals. These are not the same thing, and large market cap is not a benefit, it's a direct sign of a failure of competition in the market place. You can keep your Amazon. I'm more than happy having 5 smaller companies to chose from competing with each other for offering a similar product.
The world doesn't benefit from one company owning everything. Hell the world was better when WhatsApp was its own thing, when Instagram was its own thing, when Oculus was its own thing. But somehow your definition of ideal is a single company with an infinitely large market cap.
That's just silly. Again, Europe *is* your big American tech companies. You can see that through the endless string of acquisitions. Remember when Skype was good, before an American tech giant ruined it?
Re: DO IT. (Score:3)
I don't know what a more ethical advertising and user-tracking system would look like...
This reminds me of the recent Neil Young/Spotify dust-up - I don't think the EU cares if Facebook/instagram 'leaves Europe' - seriously, do they think they are an important part of modern society?
Who cares, do it, you'll only hurt your (former) European employees.
M
Re: (Score:2)
Re:DO IT. (Score:5, Interesting)
Facebook is pulled from the EU (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Come on Meta, DO IT!
I fucking dare you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Awesome!! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is great news. Will cost a few jobs, sure, but how many lives will be saved? F*ck Meta.
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I'm sure their gambit is that the EU will back down because "oh no jobs!"
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Re: Awesome!! (Score:5, Informative)
Not sure about them having killed anyone, but there are concerns they have amplified hate speech that has in turn led to genocide. See for example https://www.theguardian.com/te... [theguardian.com]
Re: (Score:3)
im sorry but i gotta ask. how has facebook, or meta killed anyone? im really confused by your claim
Facebook studies show that teenage girls who use Instagram have a much higher risk of many mental health issues including suicidal ideation [forbes.com], which in some cases can be argued for Meta leading to people's deaths.
Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Please!
Opportunity is Knocking (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds like an opportunity for a non-targeting competitor to eat their lunch in Europe.
Fuck Meta and their ad targeting.
Re:Opportunity is Knocking (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Opportunity is Knocking (Score:5, Informative)
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Maybe they should stop standing on their heads?
Re:Opportunity is Knocking (Score:5, Informative)
Precisely, The current investigation into the Schrems ruling from EU court on the non-acceptance of the US "privacy shield", is that companies in the US are potentially NOT protecting the data as is mandated by EU law (mainly because US laws do not provide for data privacy to the extent that the EU demands), and therefore the data is not allowed to leave the EU, in point of fact ACCESS to the data is not even allowed outside EU. This charter of the GDPR regulations is there to ensure that noone is subject to undue prosecution, as per the UN human rights charter (also signed by the US btw), and it has been implemented to avoid problems with authoritarian regimes. So it should be no issue for any freedom loving country to want to abide by these rules.
Keep in mind the ruling is so far only leading to an investigation, because of the current findings. Meta (and any other company that holds personal data on EU citizens) might still implement measures to keep up to the EU standards. Google has already provided the "what does google know about me"-feature, precisely to conform to GDPR rules.
Meta are similarly free to KEEP the data in EU, or transmit "targeting wants"-data from the US to the EU servers, rather than moving the personal data to the US and processing it there... But this will cost them money, because then they need to expand the EU datacentres and their many algorithms. They might also need to employ more people in the EU, at a higher cost.... All this is expensive. It's easier (cheaper) to try to combat the legislation (MS, Google and a few others have tried the same when they blatantly ignored EU rules, but they usually loose since laws in Europe are not really open to interpretation in the way they are in the US.
Why Meta would want to threaten with social suicide, I cannot understand. It must be a desperation move. Maybe they are trying to mobilize support for their position amongst its users. Multiple competitors have no issues complying with the rules, and if facebook and instagram are gone tomorrow, EU users will migrate to alternatives. A few might try to do the china trick and use VPN, but that would be a minority of users, since this is not easily done by the average tech illiterate user.
Where is Sheryl Sandberg on this issue? (Score:2)
This fairly recent NY Times piece on her [nytimes.com] seems to indicate she's become a less vocal proponent for Facebook in the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection.
Can you imagine working for Facebook and then meeting people in the real world and having to explain when asked that you work for Facebook? Ewww. Judging from that article and h
Re: (Score:2)
>>Why Meta would want to threaten with social suicide, I cannot understand.
Hi,
From my perspective it's simple:
7000 current employees in EU
promised 10000 more for EU to build more of "meta"
If they can't move the IP-labor to process the data to stateside for revenue growth,
then they can quietly say "hey EU, We can't employ the 10K we promised, we are dismissing 1/2 of the 7000 without paying the labor unemployment penalties taxes because you created the mess with your laws".
10,000 new jobs might
Re: (Score:3)
>>Why Meta would want to threaten with social suicide, I cannot understand.
Hi,
From my perspective it's simple:
7000 current employees in EU
promised 10000 more for EU to build more of "meta"
If they can't move the IP-labor to process the data to stateside for revenue growth,
then they can quietly say "hey EU, We can't employ the 10K we promised, we are dismissing 1/2 of the 7000 without paying the labor unemployment penalties taxes because you created the mess with your laws".
10,000 new jobs might not seem like a lot, but it's a huge labor number and the fear of well paying jobs being lost ( and the tax revenue from even 1 of those 7000 ) does put exceedingly higher than normal pressure.
That's my take on the game. because if google can do it, then everyone else can also.
Eu has ~200 million employed people and 450 million population... I don't think "employment" is in any way something FB can use to "pressure" the EU... You seem to think the EU is a small town somewhere that depends on the taxes paid by FB employees...
Re:Opportunity is Knocking (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure they could easily deal with setting up a European targetted advertising operation. The real issue, I think, is that their websites operate in a truly global manner. That is, a person on Facebook in the US can connect with a person on Facebook in Europe, viewing their posts and such, and Facebook would for usability reasons want to mirror those posts so as not to have ungodly latency for cross-ocean viewing.
I hate to say it, but I do (to an extent) agree with Facebook. Saying "nothing can be shared" will be death to the global internet as we know it, just like saying "everything can be shared" is death to personal privacy. Clarifying where the line is would help immensely, and leaving it to the courts to do so is a recipe for disaster for all involved. Politicians on both sides of the Atlantic need to figure this stuff out.
What I'd really like to see is for equivalent privacy protections to be written into US law. That would solve a lot of the issues, and would benefit US citizens immensely. That would likely be the ideal outcome for everyone except Zuckerberg's bank account, and I'm fine with that.
Re:Opportunity is Knocking (Score:5, Interesting)
That is, a person on Facebook in the US can connect with a person on Facebook in Europe, viewing their posts and such, and Facebook would for usability reasons want to mirror those posts so as not to have ungodly latency for cross-ocean viewing.
That's not what the law requires be based locally. The issue is the transfer of *private* data, i.e. the shit Facebook knows about you, not the stuff you publish openly.
good riddance! (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, no (Score:4, Interesting)
It's an odd flex. Worst that can happen is they back down and nothing changes. Breast case they follow through.
It's like a murderous hostage taker threatening to shoot themselves in the head.
Go for it mate!
Re: (Score:2)
So, like that scene in Blazing Saddles when Sheriff Bart arrives in town?
Mmmm, breast case.
(And Slashdot doesn't like elipses. Think's they're "ASCII art".)
Re: Yeah, no (Score:2)
I need to see more of the Breast Case. Perhaps the DD sized one. Thanks.
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There's absolutely no way they'd actually abandon an enormous market like the Europe. No, they're just rattling their sabres in the hopes of scaring the regulators off.
The problem is that this isn't a threat of active harm. This is literally "I'm taking my ball and going home", which worked in 2nd grade because you're the only one with a ball. Zuck's making this threat on a playground with a thousand other balls so the threat brings nothing but mocking as you can see here.
Be really funny if the EU (Score:2)
Where is America's Privacy Protection? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
We also have no protection from multi-national corporations controlling our politics.
Indeed. It was shameful how the corporations were able to just buy the presidency for Jeb Bush.
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I believe you have just answered your own question.
But you probably knew that.
I think we know what to post (Score:2)
Oh no! (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway.
Can you imagine how much their stock will plummet if they remove themselves from Europe? That $230 billion plunge [yahoo.com] in market value that happened last week will seem like peanuts.
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Can you imagine how much their stock will plummet if they remove themselves from Europe?
You and me would be busy shorting their stock instead of posting on /. if that headline were real and not overblown bad journalism. :-)
Yes please! (Score:5, Insightful)
The sooner that cancer disappears from the internet, the better
Re: Yes please! (Score:2)
Please, please, do it! (Score:2)
Call their bluff (Score:5, Informative)
They are not going to just "leave" 450,000,000+ people in developed countries. Even without targeting ad revenue probably in the billions for the EU market.
They're just mad because they won't be able to make all of the money instead of most of the money.
Good. We will know how much people value privacy. (Score:2)
While the general public casually gives away their crown jewels for a 25 cents off coupon from the grocery store. The same grocery store where they pick their prescriptions up. Never a care about how much that data is worth or how it is shared with "partners who bring new and exciting services" to them.
We can let everyone track anything they want, but they need to disclose to the customers how much their data is being sold for. If the customers
Go Europe! (Score:3)
This would probably be the best news possible for any country and possibly for the world. How can we replicate this to every place on earth?
Facebook willingly pulling their products? One couldn't have wished for a better outcome.
Oh lord, Hallelujah!
--
When we speak of faith - the faith that can move mountains - we are not speaking of faith in general but of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. - Russell M. Nelson
And ... (Score:4, Funny)
nothing of value was lost in Europe.
if the EU doesn't back down somehow the political fallout of them preventing all the FB and Instagram addicts in Europe from being able to get their Dopamine fix every few minutes could be ugly.
But if the EU does back down you can kiss even the concept of online privacy goodbye. Or any kind of online rights for that matter as the Media Big Boys will have proven they call the shots.
I wonder who is going to blink first. {grabs popcorn and large beverage}
Wait wut? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wait wut? (Score:5, Informative)
There is a little problem with the CLOUD Act. Which allows the US government to demand stored data from US companies, even if the servers are ouside the US.
From the European POV this means that giving sensitive data to any US companies means potentially giving them to the US government. Even if the company itself is willing to treat them as confidential. Partly because of that, two agreements for allowing transfer of personal data have already failed (another reason were shortcomings by the companies that processed the data).
First the "Safe Harbour Privacy Principles" which were declated invalid by the European Court of Justice in October 2015. The EU and US created a replacement agreement called the "EU - US Privacy Shield", which was also struck down in 2020.
Essentially this means that the EU considers data protections offered by US companies insufficient, because the US government can always say "hand them over".
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Actually the governments had an agreement, but people challenged the agreement in court. The highest EU court eventually found that the agreement was not compatible with EU data protection law and declared it invalid.
Exactly that process was repeated with a second agreement.
Now I guess resuming the data exchange requires amending the law at least on one side. Either the US can scrap the CLOUD Act, or the EU drops its standards for protecting the data of its citizens.
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Individual people, including Americans, should also regard giving information to American companies as giving it to the American government. Because it is.
If you keep it out of the US they at least have to use an Orion to get it.
Re: (Score:2)
Constitution, what Constitution? No Constitution round here...
Don’t tease us like that (Score:5, Insightful)
Just do it. Please.
Giving us what we want?! (Score:2)
How dare you threaten us with a good time!
Incapable of parsing legalese (Score:5, Informative)
A publicly traded company must inform its shareholders of risks to the business. What they said is quite simply "if the EU makes it illegal for us to do our business in Europe the way we are currently doing it, we may stop to do business in Europe.". Which is quite obvious really.
It is mentioned because it is a possible risk to their business (however unlikely, it's possible), and they have to mention all possible risks.
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Well, if they can't make money there anymore; how does it make sense for them to do business there? I mean... I get it... ads are annoying. I block them in general myself; whitelisting only sites I use with significant enough regularity that I would be seriously put out if they went away. But ads are also how most "free" sites and services are paid for. And do you really think Facebook's user base... even just its EU user base... would stay if they cut off "free", ad-supported, access and switched to m
Re: (Score:2)
Ads are not banned in the EU. You can have as many ads on your site as you want, no problem at all.
The problem is targeted ads, or, more specifically targeted-to-the-person ads that require tracking. GDPR makes tracking difficult - there are limits on what data you can collect and what you can do with said data.
So, you can still make money from ads, just not "all the money" using tracking ads.
Twenty years of free web services have conditioned users to *expect* them to be free. And it will require quite a culture change... one which won't happen quickly... to break that conditioning.
Twenty years ago there were no targeted-to-the-person ads or as much tracking as there is now.
As for this:
Why not just close the EU offices and datacenters (if they have them), create a lower-bandwidth version of the sites, and host it from outside EU jurisdiction?
There prob
Re: (Score:2)
that was a moronic part of the statement that was unnecessary
No. It was quite necessary. For the reasons that the PP stated. This was taken from an SEC filing. Which must enumerate possible risks to income. Not likely risks. Just possible. Or they (Meta) get their ass sued off if for some unlikely reason they have to make this decision.
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And to be legally on the safe side, they list even the most trivial and far-fetched risks. If you compare those risk disclosures to advertisments by the same company, you might get the idea those are two different entities ;-)
Re: (Score:2)
> European regulations they knew they would be
> subject to
Actually, TFA and the other sites linked in TFS read as though the EU pulled a Vader and altered the deal after the fact. The EU... not Facebook... seems to have reneged on the "Privacy Shield" framework just like it reneged on the "safe harbor" framework before it. I think it's pretty fair to place the blame on the party that has created a moving target by breaking those agreements.
Do Meta execs think Facebook will survive? (Score:2)
Zucktease (Score:2)
Whatsapp too ! (Score:3)
Please take Whatsapp out too, and good riddance :D
They didn't say they will pull out (Score:2)
They will not "pull out". Worst case, they might spin off an EU company which will run a clone of FB and Instagram but pay 99% of their profit to Meta in licensing fees for running and maintaining their software. Perhaps even add a paid service for FB-USA and FB-EU if they want see/share content across continents, where each user will explicitly pay to transfer they data - EU is probably not likely to limit individual's right to store their own data in another country - $1/1EUR per year to backup your data
Oh yes! Please, PLEASE do so! (Score:2)
Makes for a nice improvement here and hopefully another stock price crash.
It's empty rhetoric (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Class A shares are worth 1 vote per share. Class Bs are worth 10. Zuckberburg owns enough of the Class Bs to give him a majority on any votes he may take an interest in; like other shareholders opposing him.
Some shares are also covered by "holder voting agreements [edgar-online.com];though I don't know how many and how those are distributed.
In practice, ther
well deserved self created issue (Score:2)
A Good Time (Score:2)
bluff (Score:2)
The hell they'll pull Facebook. They may degrade the experience somewhat hoping for sympathy.
Why isn't there an opensource decentralized Facebook yet? oh right, Facebook is zero cash flow for the hoi polloi.
Re: (Score:2)
Buh bye! (Score:2)
Don't let the door hit your stinky ass on the way out. We just cleaned it.
Oh no! (Score:2)
People will be free from tracking, cyber stalking, and manipulation.
Need to call my senator now... (Score:2)
We need to start a "No Targeted Ads" campaign here in the states so FB drops us too!
Zuck is Going to Hold his (Score:2)
Breath until you let him have his candy..
OK. (Score:2)
And nothing of value would be lost.
Please, please.. (Score:2)
Can he pull from the US too?
International connections (Score:2)
Just as much as I want to say: DO IT.... there are some technical questions.
I have friends all over Europe, and here I am in the US. How will I access their feeds? Or check their friends? How I will even discover common friends?
There is really no easy way. Remote joins would require at least a "primary key" to be shared. And all operations will incur a 120ms+ additional ping (while pages normally load under 60ms to be accepted as "fast").
Add in all other locales that want to host their own citizens (India,
Re: (Score:2)
You can use some other service, it's not like Meta is the only way to communicate.
Also, GDPR does not prevent a global communication platform. It prevents collecting and processing data that is not technically needed to provide the service (without consent that cannot be condition to access the service).
How is it a threat? (Score:2)
Hell, I wish they would pull out of the US too. Fucking parasites.
YEAH! (Score:2)
Zuckerberg won't leave. He doesn't dare. (Score:2)
You can bet your bum Facebook won't be withdrawing from Europe any time soon. Imagine the boost that would give to competitors currently existing only on the fringe, even though they're pretty good Facebook substitutes. Mostly, all they're lacking is numbers. They'd probably pick up quite a lot of subscribers directly if Facebook pulled out of Europe, and tons more as friends and relatives of "Island Europe" inhabitants joined the new social media to stay in touch.
Some examples I'm thinking of are Diaspo
Works for me (Score:2)
Would anyone in Europe even care?
yes ! (Score:2)
Yes, please do! Get this cancer out of our... oh, wait. That's just a bullshit headline and nothing like that actually happened. Damn. And here I was hoping for a better life in Europe AND the destruction of Facebook all in one move.
"We shall fight ZE VEE PEE ENN!!!" (Score:2)
Yet another way to highlight the idiocy of region locking.
Oh yeah. And fuck Facebook.
Well, lucky Europe (Score:3)
Re: Boomerbook (Score:2)
My 85 year old mother and 78 year old father face Facebooks accounts.
I do not.
Re:*shock* (Score:5, Funny)
Next thing you know, the Dacia Sandero will be delayed [youtube.com].