Hacker News Reader

Comment by coderdude | Hacker News Reader

It's always funny when a little country like Germany or France wants to "ban the Internet" or something. It's kind of cute.

Edit: Man, I sure have offended a lot of people. I really didn't mean to make it seem like you're insignificant, or that the decisions you make are ridiculous and not well thought out when it comes to the Web. I think you guys are doing a great job!

Keep up all this good work and maybe one day we'll relinquish our control of the root name servers over to you.

View on HN

Little? Germany is one of the world's massive economies.

Whats cute is Americans who think regulating business is something we should never do and privacy laws are bullshit. Sorry, but it looks like the rest of the world isn't so lassiz-faire.

Not all privacy laws are bullshit...but this one sure seems to be. The "Like" button (and the "1+" button, and the buttons to submit to Reddit, HN, and the like, which would all be covered) are completely optional for the visitor to the site. They don't have to click them unless they want to.

The same argument they are using against these buttons applies to off-site hyperlinks in general. Are those going to be banned in the name of privacy?

The "Like" button is not a hyperlink. A hyperlink doesn't reveal your identity to the target site unless you click on it - the Like button will ping Facebook about your presence even if you don't click.

So yes, there are major legitimate privacy concerns about this. I'd hope you weren't aware of this, otherwise this would be an incredibly disingenuous argument to make.

I thought the same in my previous comment, but after a bit of searching, the Like button is not optional at all.

It is capable of tracking both logged-in Facebook users and even users that don't have a Facebook account. It sets a cookie without you clicking it.

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1717563

  Scenario: The web user does not have a Facebook account  
  ...
  after visiting a web site on which Facebook Connect has 
  been implemented, the request for the Like button 
  includes a cookie. This cookie has an expiration date two 
  years from the moment it was issued. However, by browsing 
  across web sites, additional cookies can be placed on the 
  user's computer and these can be added later on in new 
  requests.

OK, I see that it is not equivalent to a link, because it loads stuff even if you don't click it.

However, is it any worse than an off-site image, or an off-site JavaScript? Those both contact a third-party server. For instance, if I use MathJax on my site, downloaded via a script tag that points to cdn.mathjax.org, would I get in trouble in Europe?

Little as in its size and population, as well as how no one cares what Germany does with their Internet (except for Germans, of course). What's really cute is how people whine about privacy but use the Web. Two things that clash entirely at a fundamental level (the client-server model).

Privacy laws are actually mainly EU wide, which represents more than 300 millions people. Now you could say the US is little compared to China and India, but does it bring much value to the discussion?

EU population is actually over 500 million

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union

So my statement is still valid ;) Thanks for the correction! Think I mixed up things in my memory with the Eurozone, should have checked it.

It's so cheap to use something like this to vent your feelings of superiority. Also "ban the internet or something" doesn't really work for me as meaningful analysis. Clearly similar legislation and the clash of internet ideals vs bureaucracy is not at all limited to "us Euro-trash" wink.

This was certainly not about feelings of superiority. It was more about how every now and then we hear about some country somewhere wanting to do ridiculous things like ban a widget and fine you 50,000 euros if you have it on your site. That doesn't sound retarded to you?

The same way "some country" wants to do "ridiculous things" like fine you six-figures for downloading a MP3?

Mmm... sort of. But you're really stretching it there. I get your point and yeah of course that's totally stupid, but it's also somewhat irrelevant. They both have to do with enormous fines for small infractions and they both have to do with the Web. I said in another comment that it doesn't matter who is doing something stupid -- it's still stupid. But this article wasn't about copyright law in the United States. I make the same comments in those threads as well. Only since this one is about Germany being retarded, they get the special treatment.

If you take the time to put it like this, I would not object, in fact I upvoted you.

Many germans use local mail providers because providers are legally constrained to handle user data better than US providers. EU privacy laws are not such a bad thing. Of course sometimes they are very local judgements happening that makes the news, but that's not like that never happens in the US... Amazon and Texas, does it tell you something?

I think you make a good point. What I said also applies when one of our states makes the same kind of decision. I think it's dumb when Texas does weird stuff like this too, for example.

Those are probably the worst two countries to choose as an example. Germany and France have a huge influence on the EU.

Trolling is not cool, man.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com