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Comment by TomMarius | Hacker News Reader

You can stop using Facebook if you want to

They are collecting information about me even without my consent, without having registered.

That's not true. That's the purpose of the cookie law. If you continue to use a website that gives you the notice, you've given consent. You can still use blockers also.

It's not "consent" as understood by GPDR and ePrivacy. You had no recourse not to give it, therefore it was not willing and informed.

Not true, you can leave the website. The website of course has to not track you until you don't leave.

Again, this is not deemed sufficient by GDPR. According to the law you can't condition the service you're providing on collecting unrelated (to that service) data.

The GDPR doesn't apply to US companies. While the FB has EU offices right now, they're there for convenience only. They can close them next month and stop caring about the EU law.

| they're there for convenience only. They can close them next month

Citation needed? Facebook gets revenue from their ad network, which is used by European business customers and targets European users. Therefore they need to comply with European law.

And if someone tags me in a photo?

Then they uploaded a picture they shouldn't have uploaded and the person who uploaded it should be sued (by you and possibly by Facebook because they broke the TOS that says you can only upload stuff that doesn't break the laws - and a photo of you that you didn't agree to be uploaded is against the laws)

a photo of you that you didn't agree to be uploaded is against the laws

I've never heard of this before, is it a part of GDPR?

No, it's part of the basic privacy protection laws that every EU coutry has had for decades. It's the same law that says you can't share videos taken with a dashcam if you're recording in the public.

Or, and this is crazy, I know, but Facebook could follow the rules.

AFAIK it follows all US laws to the letter.

That’s fantastic, for the US. The next step would be to follow all EU laws to the letter, too.

It's an US company if I remember correctly. Does a hamburger place in the US need to follow EU laws because tourists come to it often? No.

Last time I agreed to Facebooks terms of services it explicitly said that the agreement is between me and Facebook Ireland Limited in Dublin. I only ever consented to the data being transferred and processed in the US.

The Facebook Europeans use is very much an EU company.

I believe McDonalds locations inside Europe do follow EU laws, so yes.

You seem to not understand the difference in location. Of course companies in the EU follow EU laws.

And FB has presence in the EU.

Very limited and if the EU will keep fining them, they will leave - and that will mean the exact opposite of what EU wanta because not having an EU entity doesn't mean they don't continue to have EU users.

You can stop Facebook from using you as well in the EU.

So you're effectively stealing then? Your data is your payment to Facebook.

That would be great if it were true, but even if you don’t use Facebook, that does not exclude you from their marketing activities. https://boingboing.net/2017/11/08/involuntary-profiling.html

Not true, there's the cookie law - if you continue to use a website that has given you an option to leave, it's consent.

It's not "consent" as understood by GPDR and ePrivacy. You had no recourse not to give it, therefore it was not willing and informed.

FB can stop to have a corporate presence in the EU.

I hope there's a mechanism to arrest Facebook officers on business trips or vacation to EU countries and compel them to cough up the money.

I see so now are literally extorting.

I hope they do. That will mean a lot of lost tax money for the EU (I'm EU citizen btw).

It will only hit Ireland. Thanks to some trickery they only pay 0.03% taxes on their revenue in other EU countries. Wont be a big loss.

Not true anymore (changed last year after the new VAT laws)

The Irish double doesn't have anything to do with VAT. And the Irish double was replaced with the "Single Malt". It would be a loss for Ireland and Malta, still not a big loss.

Most of the tax income EU has from FB is VAT and since they now have to distribute the money to the place where the customer is, it means that all EU countries will be affected.

A lot would be before tax optimization not after ;)

Not true anymore since the VAT laws changed last year

Will Facebook remove all of my personal data and attest to no longer collecting any future data from my online of offline activities?

Dunno man, did you give them your personal data? If yes, then according to the TOS it's theirs. If not, there's no problem.

Where is the ToS you agree to for the involuntary profiles they create of you if you've never used their service?

https://boingboing.net/2017/11/08/involuntary-profiling.html

"Facebook is well understood as being a major customer of third-party data-brokers, who compile huge dossiers on people based on their spending, internet and phone usage, employment history and so on. In addition, Facebook encourages users to upload their entire address books to the system to "find your friends," and users generally don't appreciate that they may be leaking sensitive information, including nicknames, private numbers, and connections to the system.

Facebook mines this data to create "shadow profiles" of its billions of users. These are profiles that are filled with data about you that you have never consciously provided to the system -- data mined from third parties, including your friends, but also those spooky data-brokers. Facebook's shadow profile system was first confirmed in 2013 when it accidentally leaked users' shadow profiles to them along with their own data, something the company says it will never do again out of (ironic) respect for the privacy of the people who provided the data that goes into your shadow profile.

Facebook's shadow profiles are involuntary and there's no opt-out. Facebook has shadow profiles on people who don't use the service. For example, even though I'm not a Facebook user, multiple people have uploaded their address books containing my email and phone number to the system, allowing Facebook to create a profile of my contacts by looking at who lists me as a contact."

There's the cookie notice that every website with FB tracking code has to display to you and not track you until you give consent (e.g. by continuing to use the site). If your friends do something you don't like like uploading photos of you, FB has nothing to do with it - it's your friends who gave them the info and lied that the data they upload is uploadef rightfully.

According to the law, you have to give certain rights to the user, including the right to demand cease of use and deletion of the data. So, you do not own the data and are not free to use it however you wish.

That's an EU law, FB is US company.

It is of no matter where FB is incorporated. Every country can still bring it to court and judge it. The question is then of enforceability. I'm confident the EU can enforce fines on FB, but that is a different discussion.

Was there ever a single case of something like the EU successfully fining an US company for breaking laws that don't apply to the company?

And why is that a good or acceptable thing? Why should one's personal data, and how that's used, be paramount?

Because nobody forces you to use websites that track you or Facebook itself. It's your voluntary choice and in many cases also your payment for the seemingly free service.

This is a very poor argument, as basically it's saying that people should go back to living in caves.

Not at all. People either don't care about this enough or they will create an alternative - them caring means a new business opportunity has been created.

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