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Comment by draq | Hacker News Reader

The change in policy is demanded by the "Independent State Centre for Data Protection, Schleswig-Holstein", a public institution of a constituent state, but not a court of law.

It will probably go through all the court instances, before a conclusion is reached. So let's talk about it next year.

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Depends. Some countries empower the local data protection commission to make binding injunctions forcing a company/person to do/not do a thing. I know Ireland has this. No idea of Germany, but presume it's similar.

So, yes, this might have the same legal force as a court injunction.

I am pretty sure it might take more than one year since this should end up in the European Court.

this should end up in the European Court

Eh? I'm not sure such a thing called "the European Court" exists...

That may be an incorrect name, but it such courts do exist.

Yes, it does and is more formally called the European Court of Justice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Court_of_Justice

It only handles union law and not national law but I bet FB will try to get the ECJ to review the case as a free movement of goods issue.

Unlikely. Considering how the new Data Protection Directive being written goes further than the current one, and seems to be targetting various things Facebook does (like having all it's EU stuff in Ireland). It seems like a lot of EU law is on the side of privacy and data protection.

I am pretty sure Facebook will try to appeal. Does not mean they will get the appeal though.

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