Meta Fined Record $1.3 Billion in EU Over US Data Transfers (bloomberg.com) 84
Facebook owner Meta was hit by a record $1.3 billion European Union privacy fine and given a deadline to stop shipping users' data to the US after regulators said it failed to protect personal information from the prying eyes of American security services. Bloomberg News: The social network giant's continued data transfers to the US didn't address "the risks to the fundamental rights and freedoms" of people whose data was being transfered across the Atlantic, according to a decision by the Irish Data Protection Commission announced on Monday. On top of the fine, which eclipses a $806 million EU privacy penalty previously doled out to Amazon, Meta was given five months to "suspend any future transfer of personal data to the US" and six months to stop "the unlawful processing, including storage, in the US" of transferred personal EU data. A data-transfers ban for Meta was widely expected and once prompted the US firm to threaten a total withdrawal from the EU. But its impact has now been muted by the transition phase given in the decision and the prospect of a new EU-US data flows agreement that could already be operational by the middle of this year.
not flamebait - tiktok (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:not flamebait - tiktok (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly. The EU and US security services share data anyway. They are effectively above all national and international laws except those they create for themselves. We hope these groups are working for our good, but they don't seem to be accountable to anyone and they have been implicated in some very harmful behaviors.The Snowdon leaks showed the extent of the CIAs disregard for law.
But this story isn't really about that kind of data sharing, it's about for-profit companies using data in illegal ways to make more profit at the expense of their users.
EU data protection laws are meant to prevent companies using data in ways that are considered harmful to users. As part of that they forbid sending user data to regions where the same level of protection don't apply. Like the US. That's what facebook was caught doing.
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We hope these groups are working for our good, but they don't seem to be accountable to anyone
This is mutually exclusive.
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This is mutually exclusive.
The only way to be good is to be accountable? That's quite a moral framework you have, there.
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"Lack of accountability" confers power. Power corrupts.
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Holding to account confers power, too, unfortunately. The only way to be good would be to follow orders handed down to you by evil people.
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It's not logically mutually exclusive, but it does seem to develop that way in practice.
Re:not flamebait - tiktok (Score:5, Informative)
But this story isn't really about that kind of data sharing
It actually is: after the 2013 Edward Snowden disclosures, Austrian privacy campaigner Max Schrems filed a legal challenge against Facebook for failing to protect his privacy rights, and European users’ data not being sufficiently protected from US intelligence agencies when transferred across the Atlantic was specifically mentioned. It was this complaint which lead to the current ruling.
See Politico [politico.eu], BBC [bbc.com] and The Guardian [theguardian.com].
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EU data protection laws are meant to prevent companies using data in ways that are considered harmful to users.
Not really. It's based on the idea that being in control of your personal data is a fundamental right because otherwise, you would not be a human but a number. It's more about dignity than not being harmed.
As part of that they forbid sending user data to regions where the same level of protection don't apply. Like the US. That's what facebook was caught doing.
There's no absolute prohibition to send data to such regions as long as there are adequate safeguards. In the US's case, the issue is that those safeguards are ineffective against intelligence services AND that there is no legal recourse for non-US citizens.
Re:not flamebait - tiktok (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a bit more complex than this, annoyingly. Posting anonymously because ... meh I don't want this comment tied to me.
Basically the security services of most nations are, by law, prohibited from mass collection of data of their own citizens. Now, there's differing opinions on what "mass collection" means - for example, some take the view that "collecting" the data is illegal, while a lot take the view that "accessing" the data is the illegal part. So, in a lot of cases, they'll hoover up the data, but then just need a warrant or probable cause to access the data.
There's a couple of huge loopholes. The first - if the data crosses international boundaries, it falls into a different category. If, for example, your data happens to route Chicago->Toronto->NY, then it can be reviewed as it's foreign communications. The other is foreigners themselves - they're not protected by local laws, so talking to someone outside the country, or being a foreigner not in the country, means none of these laws apply to you. Lastly, many of these countries have agreements in place to share their data.
So, in short, they use these massive loopholes to get all this data without circumventing their own laws. I'll spy on your citizens, you spy on mine, and we share it all with each other. I didn't spy on these citizens over here without a warrant, Australia did, which they're legally allowed to do, then they told me all about it.
The EU kinda knows this. As soon as data crosses the border into the US, it's not covered by any American privacy laws since it's not American citizens. The privacy shield provisions originally in place until a couple of years ago had made the (very weak) legal argument that the Americans are cool man, don't worry about it. Now the capabilities that are available are getting further and further along, so there's a lot of problems with storing MY citizens data in YOUR country where you will not grant us the same basic privacy considerations as your own citizens - not to mention the US privacy rules are a joke in comparison to the EU rules.
So.. yeah, what can be done? Realistically, not much. Without "true" end to end encryption (none of this "whatsapp" version of it), they'll be listening. And thankfully, some wing of the EU doesn't like this. It's similar to the right-hand-left-hand problem in the states regarding freely available high quality encryption, where some parts of the government really want it available, and others want to defeat it.
EU is not part of Five Eyes (Score:3)
Exactly. The EU and US security services share data anyway.
Actually no. The EU and the countries that belong to it (after BREXIT) are not part of the "Five Eyes" intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These mutually share data about "foreigners" circumventing laws that are meant to prevent spying on their own people. This does not apply to the EU und the EU countries.
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While the Five Eyes alliance represents one such data sharing agreement, it's not the only one. In any case, the critical issue is that once data about non-US citizens lands in the US, it's not protected by the privacy laws in place to protect US citizens (see previous post).
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It's not palpable, it's the way of the world. It's not about being right, it's about being able to compel, even resorting the the use of violence. This has been happening since time immemorial. This is essentially what occurs when the US gains a new enemy; some country is able to break out of the US's sphere of influence, and starts running its own foreign policy, which the US doesn't wish for itself.
This approach is currently on display with the war in Ukraine, where Russia sees Ukraine as an indivisible i
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The EU sucks as an allies, honestly with friends like the EU who needs enemies. The EU does nothing but try to economically sabotage the US at every turn, and at the same time sponges off us for their defense problems. Just look at where the money to deal with Ukraine is mostly coming from even though that is decidedly a EU problem in terms of security and economic interest.
I looked, and found that your jingoism* seems to have resulted in you presenting a potentially misleading perspective on the facts [statista.com]. Has the US contributed by far the most on an individual level, absolutely. Have they provided most of the total aid, no they have not.
(Expand the graph. The US's aid contribution is matched, roughly, by the time you get down to Norway.)
*Assuming you're not merely a paid troll in the service of Russia, that is.
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Where does the actual article mention security services? TFA is paywalled and the excerpt in TFS doesn't mention them.
The historic reason for these European data laws was pure data sovereignty: European governments wanted data about their subjects to stay where those governments could regulate its handling and processing. The alleged concern over the US government seems to have been injected by whoever wrote and approved this summary.
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Where does the actual article mention security services?
Where does the GP mention security services? Maybe you hit the wrong reply link?
However, security services are always relevant in these discussions *cough*FIVE EYES*cough*
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Where does the actual article mention security services? TFA is paywalled and the excerpt in TFS doesn't mention them.
Although it doesn't name the US security services, it strongly implies them in this RNZ post [rnz.co.nz] is sourced from Reuters and is probably much the same. I've highlighted the relevant bit.
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This post isn't intended as flamebait but isn't this what the US is claiming tiktok does?
Yes, and it is called American Exceptionalism --- US can do whatever it wanted, while everyone else cannot do what US didn't want them to do. This is what US meant by "Rule based international order", everyone need to follow the rules US gave them, while US isn't bound by any rules.
Yes, it is pure dictatorship on the country level. People call it US Hegemony, and it is on the verge of collapse, starting with losing the global trade currency status of the USD.
Now watch American mods mod this down to oblivi
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Yes, and it is called American Exceptionalism --- US can do whatever it wanted, while everyone else cannot do what US didn't want them to do. This is what US meant by "Rule based international order", everyone need to follow the rules US gave them, while US isn't bound by any rules.
Quick quiz, how have European countries treated others when they were running the world? When England or France was the world's major naval power, what did they parlay that into? This is exactly how the world has always worked, and there's nothing exceptional about American Exceptionalism, except how successful it has been. This in turn is about how exceptional America is more than Americans, as it was the last unraped land on the planet when we got here. (Oh well.)
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Quick quiz, how have European countries treated others when they were running the world?
So, Whataboutism is the only rebuttal you can give.
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So, Whataboutism is the only rebuttal you can give.
When you learn to think, and not just to read, you'll see that I'm not defending anything. What I'm doing is taking exception to the idea that Americans are exceptional in this regard, not defending America's military misadventures (against which I have argued repeatedly.)
Everybody wants to pretend they're more moral than Americans because we're doing what they were doing until they got their asses kicked by someone bigger and badder, which was sometimes us. It's sour grapes, not superior morality. They're
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This post isn't intended as flamebait but isn't this what the US is claiming tiktok does?
Yes, and it is called American Exceptionalism --- US can do whatever it wanted, while everyone else cannot do what US didn't want them to do. This is what US meant by "Rule based international order", everyone need to follow the rules US gave them, while US isn't bound by any rules.
Yes, it is pure dictatorship on the country level. People call it US Hegemony, and it is on the verge of collapse, starting with losing the global trade currency status of the USD.
Now watch American mods mod this down to oblivion so they don't have to acknowledge it.
My brother in Karl Marx - you are posting as AC so you're starting in oblivion without "American mods" doing anything. At most your post can go 1 point lower. The army of your imagined censors doesn't even need to mobilize.
Re:not flamebait - tiktok (Score:5, Insightful)
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The US has actually, relatively, been "good guys". You've got to compare them against previous dominant global (or prior to that regional) powers), so that's faint praise indeed. Ashoka was supposed to have ruled an empire that was even better at being "good guys", but he's largely a mythical figure. Hiawatha may also fall into that category, though I'm not really that familiar with Iroquois myths.
That said, most empires have been based around cultures that extolled military might, so having a culture th
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This is why I have a healthy habit of treating with skepticism every international news story I read that involves politics or might involve politics. Because there are no "good guys" in these stories, only sides trying to dominate all the others by whatever methods are available. And the US, as much as they believe they are the good guys, is just one more side in a global power struggle where no side is better or worse than the other.
This isn't about nationalism or politics, it's about a business operating in the EU without following the EU's rules. That business now has to pay a fine for breaking those rules. If we get nationalistic or start choosing "good" vs "bad" we will lose sight of what has actually happened. Facebook has finally been held accountable and punished for some of its sneaky business practices. Wherever you live, whatever nationality you identify as, this is a win for privacy and accountability.
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Waitaminute. Is that something which happened here? (Bloomberg.com pages only load the first two paragraphs for me.) The summary, at least, doesn't mention anything about the US having a problem with this fine.
Re:not flamebait - tiktok (Score:4, Insightful)
One would argue that there's a nuanced difference but with the Patriot Act and the abuse of National Security Letters, your data is no safer in the US than it is in China.
GDPR is a published legal regulation (Score:4, Insightful)
Not sure its the same thing. GDPR is a published legal regulation that took effect in May 2018, that every company that has European entities/users data must comply to. The EU was quite transparent from the start of this regulation that any penalties could result in fines up to 2% of global turnover for a company choosing not to comply. So currently Meta/Facebook are being fined at about half of the maximum (given last years turnover of $116 billion). Meta are clearly in breach of GDPR in a number of ways (allegedly).
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IIUC, there keep being temporary agreements between some group in the EU government that keep being thrown out by the courts as illegal. So Meta may not be trying to break the law, but rather just to skate as close to the edge as possible. Of course, when the agreement is ruled invalid, then they're breaking the law, and they don't rush into compliance.
It makes one wonder whether the groups that keep making the agreements are doing so for free.
The US doesn't have any privacy laws (Score:4, Interesting)
There's an old kid's cartoon base on the movie Rambo Part 2. You'd think "A kid's show based on an R movie? WTF?" when hearing that, but the show's writers went out of their way to make it non-violent. Sometimes to ridiculous degrees. Parents still killed it. Which is a shame. Fun show. Well written. Less violent than G.I. Joe.
If anything Tiktok probably has better privacy and data controls than any social media platform on Earth. Certainly better than Twitter since they fired all their staff.
If you're under constant watch it's a lot harder to get get away with things. Everybody's watching every move Tiktok makes to see if they mess up. Facebook does ghastly things as part of their daily business, argues the fines down to basically nothing and moves on, and we all just ignore it. Meanwhile Montana just tried to ban Tiktok.
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That *may* be correct. But IIRC a terminated employee (or possibly he quit) said the the Chinese government had access to all the information they collected. Now perhaps he was lying, or perhaps TikTok just shares their systems passwords with the Chinese government or perhaps something else. That could mean a lot of different things, depending on how one interprets it.
Of course, the real benefit would be if the Chinese government could control their programming. This would allow massive subtle propagand
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Diplomatic Immunity! (Score:2)
This post isn't intended as flamebait but isn't this what the US is claiming tiktok does?
No. American exceptionalism. (said in Joss Ackland's voice in Lethal Weapon 2)
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Yup. As a Canadian we are also restricted from allowing certain types of data to be stored in the US. American privacy laws don't apply to foreign data, and American agencies have demonstrated that they don't care about any laws that might or might not apply to American citizens either.
It's truly hilarious watching American politicians wring their hands about how TikTok might be passing information to the Chinese government when their own intelligence agencies literally vacuum up all domestic data, and as m
Total withdraw from the EU? (Score:5, Insightful)
Total withdraw from the EU? I hope that's a promise, not a threat.
Seconded (Score:1)
Yes please. Though they'll have to give you an option to get all your data out first. So that's going to mean extra work for teh zuck's minions.
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Yes please. Though they'll have to give you an option to get all your data out first. So that's going to mean extra work for teh zuck's minions.
haha no. It's just "We can't do business there any more so we're not complying with any of that shit, and oh yeah, all your data are belong to us, as you agreed when you signed up — since we're not in your country any more, any laws which conflict with that are irrelevant to us." In fact, if they can't legally function in your country, they can't legally operate enough to give you back your data. You did save a copy, right, and didn't just depend on Faceboot to store it for you forever?
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Perhaps you think the US will be better off without access to the other 96%.
I also assume that you believe that anyone who visits or does not do business in the USA is not subject to US laws ?
Perhaps the world should move to using the Euro as the currency for international trade ?
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It's an totally empty threat. You think Meta would withdraw from the EU, who provides 30% of their global revenue upwards of $30bn? That would lead to one thing and one thing only: shareholders withdrawing from Meta (along with likely a large string of lawsuits and the calling for Zuck's head).
It's something I can totally get behind, but it's a completely empty threat.
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If the USA want to do business in other countries, obey their laws and regulations.
LOL. Nice taxation on American businesses (Score:2, Interesting)
One thing about Europe is they are simply using these massive fines as a way to tax foreign businesses because this gives them new revenue streams.
Sad that this is happening in the west.
I will point out that I have said multiple times, that Europe should push to break apart large on-line companies. Not just American, but CHinese. And then have the european part compete against the foreign groups. I really think that it
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I will say that if Meta transfered data, they were way out of line. But a 1.3B fine?
Being out of line is why they had the court order. The fine is because they didn't follow it.
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I'm betting not one single cent out of that massive fine will go to the people who were harmed by Facebook.
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Re:LOL. Nice taxation on American businesses (Score:5, Insightful)
The requirements of GDPR were announced long before it came into force, companies had ample time to put the necessary compliance measures in place, and the ramp up in damage levied has been a lot slower than many of its privacy championing proponents would like, especially for the repeat offenders like Meta that seem to just not care. Frankly, in Meta's case, they're still getting off lightly too; six of the entries in the GDPR Top 20 list I linked above are Meta companies, and they're still only at ~1% of their annual turnover (GDPR allows for up to 4%)? If this was more conventional criminal activity a rap sheet like that would probably put them firmly into "throw away the key" territory.
When in Europe... (Score:5, Informative)
"any personal info we can gather is our property to sell as we see fit"
When in the USA, act like the Romans did. The Romans viewed property as loot: they did not make it, they took it, and could do with it whatever they liked.
In the Germanic tribes in Europe, property was seen as a relation, with responsibilities. It is still in our language. We speak about our friends, parents, children, etc. with the same words as we use for property. This view persists today, although (Neo-)Liberalism and The Enclosure still try to kill it.
The USA is one of the few countries in the world where the property-is-loot view persists, and there is even an American company where you can sell your friends (for cheap): Facebook.
So the "to sell as we see fit" part is the problem. You can have the data to hold responsibly, and otherwise you can't. And yes, privacy is a human right. Human rights violations should be punished with more than a fine.
Re:When in Europe... (Score:4, Interesting)
I did a consulting gig with a company that was highly regulated, had tons of forms/paperwork, worked in all 50 states, etc. They had daily drop-offs of court subpoenas and legal documents from third-party legal teams handling their cases. They wanted to operate within the boundaries of the law but with each county having its own rules etc. It was tough and legal expenses ate up a good portion of revenue.
About a year after I left them I'd heard they were bought out and the new company owners had a different risk policy, just pay the fines. They had determined they could save money by just paying the fines and pleading no contest.
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And that is why GDPR has a very high upper limit for fines, so that if you break it enough timss, the fines you have to pay will not be cheaper than obeying the law.
Facebook got hit with $1.3G fine, this is about 1% of its global turnover. GDPR allows for up to 4%, so the next time it will may be $5.2G...
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That worked really well until the fire nation attacked^W^W^W goth showed up with plunder written all over their agenda.
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Surely you realize that a fine has to hurt for it to have an effect -- it should be large enough to make it unprofitable to continue your business practice in this fashion; it's pointless to give parking level fines to billionaires, and the same goes for billionaire companies. Then there's the scale involved of these violations, with around 400 million users in the EU, that's $3 per violation, still pretty cheap all considered.
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I'd much rather have much lower fines but consistent and predictable fining.
Oh, you're one of those "gigantic government" proponents. Do you have any idea how much headcount it would require to implement that?
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Oh, you're one of those "gigantic government" proponents. Do you have any idea how much headcount it would require to implement that?
That conclusion does not follow from the premises, so you've added something of your own that may or may not (as it happens) be true outside of your own head.
You could have just said "no", it would have been easier. That you started babbling about beat cops really rammed it home.
The fine is huge due to data amount (Score:5, Insightful)
What is your suggestion ? makes fines ridiculously low like in the US so that Business would rather break the law and pay the fine , as a cost of business ? I prefer business get a huge fine, both as an example to other business to respect the law, and to make sure the fine is not a "cost of doing business".
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I don't know that it's just about money. Facebook's whole purpose is to store relationships and communications between their users, including users living in different countries. That service will become significantly more difficult to provide if the data and communications for all users need to be stored exclusively on servers in each user's home country.
In addition to that, I'm very skepti
Re:LOL. Nice taxation on American businesses (Score:5, Insightful)
The company broke the law, I don't see why fining them a large enough amount that it can't simply be "the cost of doing business" is a bad thing.
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They didn't just break the law, they were expressly told by the people who enforce said law to stop it, and they didn't. https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
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That's double stupid. I guess people need to learn by experience rather than observing an making deductions. Until recently, fines had been limited to "sensible" amounts because clearly, billions aren't "sensible", which of course means large companies could write off as the cost of doing business. The % of global revenue clause was to specifically make that not the case, but I guess Zuck didn't believe it was real or something? Still though a billion or two every few years is something facebook could write
Re:LOL. Nice taxation on American businesses (Score:5, Insightful)
I will say that if Meta transfered data, they were way out of line. But a 1.3B fine? One thing about Europe is they are simply using these massive fines as a way to tax foreign businesses because this gives them new revenue streams. Sad that this is happening in the west.
I understand what you're saying, and I disagree. Large corporations have demonstrated countless times over many decades that they consider fines and other penalties to be merely a cost of doing business. And this has been documented - fines literally appear as before-the-fact line items in corporate budgets.
Corporations will always break the law in the name of profit unless doing so consistently costs them more than the profit they stand to make. I applaud this $ 1.3B fine - that's edging into an amount that gets corporations' attention. I only hope the EU keeps it up, and that other jurisdictions follow suit. That's the only way we'll get the tail to stop wagging the dog. Except for getting rid of the silly-yet-corrupt 'corporate personhood' fiction - but that's a whole other discussion.
I will point out that I have said multiple times, that Europe should push to break apart large on-line companies. Not just American, but CHinese. And then have the european part compete against the foreign groups. I really think that it would better for society esp. the west, to do this. Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Alibaba, etc are all pretty evil.
On these points you and I are 100% in agreement.
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I will say that if Meta transfered data, they were way out of line. But a 1.3B fine?
It's way out of line. You'd think $130 would be enough, right?
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I will say that if Meta transfered data, they were way out of line. But a 1.3B fine?
You will say they were way out of line, but they shouldn't be held accountable for their actions? Now your frothing support for nuclear power makes sense, or at least, as much sense as you are capable of.
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One thing about Europe is they are simply using these massive fines as a way to tax foreign businesses because this gives them new revenue streams.
Wrong.
This is the european equivalent to the US class-action lawsuits that ask for 256 Trillion fines and end in a settlement of $25 for every actual customer affected and $50 mio. for the lawyers.
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Yes it’s called a deterrent. So it actually affects the bottom line and the company learns a lesson. The USA should take note.
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One thing about Europe is they are simply using these massive fines as a way to tax foreign businesses
A fine is not a tax. A tax is a mandatory payment. A fine is a voluntary contribution you make for not caring about the law. Meta chose to gift the EU $1.3bn in this case. It's not like they don't have a legal team who reads the laws of the countries they operate in. Heck it's not like they weren't directly warned by the EU several years ago that this would happen: https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
If you were speeding down the road and I told you to slow down there's a speed camera, and you race through it
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I won't comment directly on the taxation interpretation. Rather, I'm interested in your interpretation that the amount is very high.
1.3B on 30B net revenues is nothing. I would say well within the accepted error variance of the 30B estimate (as in, we estimate 30B ±2B, whereas the actual revenue was 31.5B minus the EU fine so is 30.2B).
Now then, given the fine amount is a paltry sum, it does suggest that other considerations are indeed more primary, such as the suggestion it is a vehicle for taxation
Why is the fine listed in USD? (Score:2)
I guess some dickhead decided to do a rough conversion while leaving out the real figure in Euros.
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The article is in Bloomberg, which besides being generally a producer of ultra-low-quality articles (which yet somehow seem to get posted here all the goddamned time) is also based in the USA. And Slashdot is also based in the USA, and the editors are lazy. Now you know, I guess?
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The article is in Bloomberg, which besides being generally a producer of ultra-low-quality articles (which yet somehow seem to get posted here all the goddamned time) is also based in the USA. And Slashdot is also based in the USA, and the editors are lazy. Now you know, I guess?
US news site CNN reported it [cnn.com] in Euros & gave a translation "Meta has been fined a record-breaking €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) by European Union regulators for violating EU privacy laws by transferring the personal data of Facebook users to servers in the United States."
'verse (Score:5, Funny)
Meta will lose this battle because they haven't got legs to stand on.
FB's bluff has been called (Score:3)
A data-transfers ban for Meta was widely expected and once prompted the US firm to threaten a total withdrawal from the EU.
Yeah, go ahead and withdraw and watch your stock price plummet.
EU called your bluff, they knew you won't dare to withdraw. Now pay the fine and follow the law like you should have done in the first place, or GTFO.
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Perhaps the EU should implement The Great EU Firewall that prevents exfiltration of EU data to the West?
I hear the Chinese have years of experience designing & building mega-sized firewalls. Maybe that was why Macron was recently in Beijing?
This feels familiar (Score:2)
Who gets the money? (Score:2)
That's the question everyone should be asking here.
Re:Who gets the money? (Score:5, Insightful)
That’s like asking who gets the money when I pay a fine for speeding.
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Why would anyone be asking who gets the money from a fine for breaking the law? Why is it relevant? It's not like this law came out of no where. It's not like Facebook doesn't have teams of lawyers on payroll specifically to understand said laws. It's also not like they weren't specifically warned they risk a fine https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com] and given the option of course correcting.
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The Government of Ireland gets the money. Which is ironic since Ireland has been pro-facebook the whole time (fighting the fine in EU courts, and losing, resulting in being obliged to fine).