Italy Fines Meta €805m Over Accessing Android Users' Photos with Facebook App (bbc.com) 30
The Associated Press reports:
Italy announced an €805 million ($887 million) fine against Meta on Saturday for using photos and videos from Android users' galleries on Facebook without specific consent or adequate disclosure...
Investigators found that the feature was enabled by default and that Facebook requested gallery access through a single permission covering multiple app functions with different purposes. The authority gave Meta 60 days to disable the feature and seek separate consent for its use.
Italy has about 20 million Android users, notes the BBC, and this fine "is among the largest an Italian authority has ever imposed on a tech giant." The charge is related to a feature which suggests photos and videos from a user's phone gallery as ideas for posts... According to the Italian regulator, a preceding [authorization] notice did not make clear that this would also allow Facebook to generate suggestions based on photos in their gallery. The regulator said it took into account "the high number of people affected" and the fact it is "still ongoing for those who have not updated the app and for those who have already given their consent to the system". It also cited "Meta's lack of co-operation".
"A Meta spokesperson told the BBC that it planned to appeal..."
Italy has about 20 million Android users, notes the BBC, and this fine "is among the largest an Italian authority has ever imposed on a tech giant." The charge is related to a feature which suggests photos and videos from a user's phone gallery as ideas for posts... According to the Italian regulator, a preceding [authorization] notice did not make clear that this would also allow Facebook to generate suggestions based on photos in their gallery. The regulator said it took into account "the high number of people affected" and the fact it is "still ongoing for those who have not updated the app and for those who have already given their consent to the system". It also cited "Meta's lack of co-operation".
"A Meta spokesperson told the BBC that it planned to appeal..."
same old same old (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Investigators found that the feature was enabled by default and that Facebook requested gallery access through a single permission covering multiple app functions with different purposes.
It's not like they weren't warned or anything...
The authority gave Meta 60 days to disable the feature and seek separate consent for its use.
Surely the billion dollar company was doing it's best to comply with what must have been a very very tricky situation...
It also cited "Meta's lack of co-operation".
Oh...
See Parts 1 and 2...
Wow you Americans really are stupid aren't you...
and
American company thinks laws don't apply to it...
Re: (Score:2)
Clicking the coward box doesn't hide your identity when you write all of your posts the same way.
Re: (Score:2)
These people are _dumb_. Primary reason I have stopped reading AC completely, unless somebody responding to an AC gives indication that there is some value in an AC posting. That happens, but only very rarely.
Re: (Score:2)
Hmmm, you mean an Irish company, right?
Does their American subsidiary even have assets?
Re: (Score:2)
Balls don't really apply to any large corporation. They have a completely different legal system. Think of it this way, if you commit a crime a guy with a gun shows up and you go to a torture prison. If they commit a crime a big nerd in a cheap suit shows up and fines them 1/10 the profit from the crime.
People know the game is rigged they just can't stop getting distracted or confused or frightened long enough to unrig it
Good decision (Score:5, Insightful)
The so-called "tech giants" have been profiting from personal info theft for decade and a half, time to put the brakes on it for good.
Re: (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:Good decision (Score:4, Interesting)
No one really seems to care about that at all.
Yep. People start to care only when it bites them in the ass strongly. Like, someone I know started caring only when his wife saw via some shared photoalbum the photos he snapped with a mistress. Another one - a female - after photos from some sort of "team building" escapade lead to a fast and unwanted job change.
People appear to learn from their mistakes only, and then only rarely.
Hence a boot from the "nanny state" isn't a bad thing at times.
Re: Good decision (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Good decision (Score:2)
Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
for using photos and videos from Android users' galleries on Facebook without specific consent or adequate disclosure...
WTF? That facebook app is installed on a lot of smartphones when you take it out of the box. That is close to abuse.
Re: Wow (Score:4, Informative)
Remember when the Facebook app grabbed everyone's contacts and then deleted them? I remember. But the world has forgotten so they allow Zuckerfuck to run code on their phones.
Dumb fucks.
Re: (Score:2)
I actually don't remember this. Nor can I find a source for this claim with 10 seconds of Googling. Do you have a link to it? (Like an actual news story, not a random reddit post (not that I was able to find that either) (and yes nested brackets, we're all coders here (except for the vibe coders, they don't count ) ) )
Re: (Score:1)
This happened in June 2012. At that time, Facebook replaced the publicly displayed email addresses in all users’ profiles worldwide with its own @facebook.com addresses, without any prior warning.
https://www.theguardian.com/te... [theguardian.com]
Re: (Score:1)
I'm by no stretch an "America rah rah!" guy, and don't even
Re: (Score:2)
When a user uses an app on their phone they expect the image and video data to not leave their phone unless they actually select it for use. Otherwise, for the user, what else is the point of having an app?
Of course, the corollary (if they knew how anything worked) is that if the app doesn't do that, then clearly they could be using a website on their phone (just like they did on the laptop they used in school) instead of needing an app, so what's the app for? Its only purpose is to be on your phone where i
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
WTF? That facebook app is installed on a lot of smartphones when you take it out of the box. That is close to abuse.
While I agree with the sentiment you are technically incorrect. The Facebook app on your phone out of the box is little more than a non-functioning placeholder and the real app is downloaded on first launch on most Android OSes. Even if you have a device which ships with a full Facebook binary it a) does nothing until it is first launched as it has not had any opportunity to obtain any OS permissions (and no it's not granted them out of the box), and b) the odds of it doing anything more than mentioning its
Italy has about 20 million Android users, notes th (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Cromprehensive [sic] reading... so important.
Is it though? We're not solving fundamental physics here. A big fine was issued for %BIGNUMBER%, does it matter if it was in fact %OTHERBIGNUMBER%? If anything I think this posts proves comprehensive (this is how it is actually spelled, I suggest if you're going to correct someone's English you don't make a mistake in the process as it diminishes your argument) reading is ... not actually important.
Now that's what I call a fine! (Score:2)
I've long complained about governments assessing fines in the mere tens of millions of dollars, or even just a paltry few millions. So this fine gives me hope that regulators are finally starting to understand a key point: penalties have to go far, FAR beyond what is considered a mere cost of doing business before they're a deterrent.
Although this is a great sign, it's probably not quite into existential threat territory. And there aren't yet any C-levels viewing the world from behind bars because of their
Re: (Score:2)
Just a standard GDPR fine. They do it again, they get fined more. At some stage they get a prohibition of storing personal data of any kind.