8 ms·

Facebook spooked after MPs seize documents for privacy breach probe

97 points by LinuxBender 8y ago

kevin_b_er 8y ago
Facebook played fast and loose with privacy for over a decade. This might have worked in the US where corporate abuse and greed reigns supreme, but not so much in Europe. And Facebook elected to move its corporate nexus to Europe to tax dodge. Were they so deluded to think Europe actually caring about privacy wouldn't one day come back to bite them?
- johnnyfaehell 8y ago
  I think the key deluded part of Facebook was thinking just because Mark Zuckerberg isn't in the UK or other nations that want to talk to him that he can just ignore them. This move just goes to show how the laws of another country can affect you without you going to that country.
  - nighthawk1 8y ago
    If there is one thing governments do not like it is being ignored and their power and reach is broad enough to make you comply in various ways.
- IBM 8y ago
  >And Facebook elected to move its corporate nexus to Europe to tax dodge. I don't think their HQ is in Europe but they probably have subsidiaries in Ireland, Netherlands or Luxembourg (like everyone else) for tax purposes. In any case, I don't think that would change anything in terms of avoiding privacy scrutiny.
- antidesitter 8y ago
  Europe is just as prone to corporate abuse and greed. See the new Copyright Directive pushed at the behest of European publishers.
  - wowzap 8y ago
    Seriously. Does anybody think GDPR is more than just virtue signaling so they can fine companies?
- auslander 8y ago
  > Facebook played fast and loose with privacy for over a decade. It is their only business model, what else they can do?
- YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
  >> Facebook played fast and loose with privacy for over a decade. This might have worked in the US where corporate abuse and greed reigns supreme, but not so much in Europe. Unfortunately, we have plenty of that in Europe, too.
- rmc 8y ago
  Combined with becoming a massively popular and influencial media company. Facebook can swing elections. So people who get elected are gonna get suspicious.
lixtra 8y ago
> ... process during its court case against the Zuckerborg, in which it is alleging Facebook defrauded ... Seriously? What happened to journalism?
- richardwhiuk 8y ago
  Standard practice for the register I'm afraid.
- stewartm 8y ago
  You either need to read a lot more of The Reg, or none at all. The Reg is written with a certain brand of humour that is appreciated by a fair chunk of its tech readership. If you want a humour free version of the article, checkout the link to The Guardian article cited. Brace yourself for lots of speling mistakes however.
  - SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
    I stopped regularly reading "El Reg" years ago for this very reason. Perhaps I just grew up. It's a real shame they put up this barrier to entry as they've been behind some truly excellent investigative journalism over the years.
    - stewartm 8y ago
      I can understand that. Humour is a matter of taste so I can't imagine they hit the mark 100% of the time for anybody, certainly they don't for me. However given the weariness derived from seeing the same kind of tech issues/fails/corruption reported ad infinitum, I happily welcome an attempt at a bit of humour to lighten the mood a little.
    - acct1771 8y ago
      NY Post, same issue, different fashion.. They actually just did a great piece on Congresspeople sleeping in their offices because they can't afford two houses. Still get a "tabloids are bad" rap. A shame.
  - 8y ago
throwaway2048 8y ago
This involves an interesting difference in the British parliamentary system of absolute parliamentary supremacy compared to the American principle of separation of powers. Basically they can pass a law that does anything, including ones for the start of investigation, the filing of criminal charges, and the seizure of evidence and assets. Facebook was very stupid to make a weak excuse of being tied up with legal process in an American court as the reason they refused to cooperate, because in the end the UK parliament can compel anything they want. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_sovereignty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_sovereignty
- TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
  Sending a Sergeant-at-Arms in person is the British diplomatic equivalent of parking tanks on your lawn. It's almost literally unprecedented, and is a signal that Parliament is very, very angry about this,
- CaptainZapp 8y ago
  What I thought is ironic as hell is Zuckerberg's (or the company's lawyers) attitude that England anyway has no jurisdiction and they can't be compelled to produce him, or even answer questions in an honest way. Fast forward: A California court has zero jurisdiction over the English parliament. About the funniest is the following statement by a Facebook spokesperson: “The materials obtained by the DCMS committee are subject to a protective order of the San Mateo Superior Court restricting their disclosure. We have asked the DCMS committee to refrain from reviewing them and to return them to counsel or to Facebook. We have no further comment.” I dare say that the fucks that Mr. Collins gives on the order of the San Mateo Superior Court can be counted with zero hands. Yeah, Mark; Karma really is a bitch.
londons_explore 8y ago
No government should have to resort to 'sneaky' measures like this. If you have a suspicion that a company is breaking the law, you ask a judge for permission to inspect them. If permission is granted, you show up at the main office and do your investigation. If a judge won't grant you permission do do that inspection, you drop the case entirely. None of this 'we used sneaky laws from centuries ago to take documents from a third party'.
- kitd 8y ago
  In the UK, Parliament is sovereign. FB had repeatedly refused to appear before a parliamentary committee to give evidence in the Cambridge Analytica case. Now, I'm not totally certain of the precise legal position, but because of its sovereignty, Parliament can act in a quasi-judicial way, so in effect, FB's actions can be seen as roughly equivalent to refusing a subpoena. FB's refusal authorised Parliament to seize the evidence they needed while the exec was on UK soil. FB have only themselves to blame.
  - wtfstatists 8y ago
    You are basically normalizing violent response to a non-violent action. US can do that because FB is US company. UK cannot just because you happen to visit. Please realize that other states are taking notes at this situation. They are waiting for US/UK/etc exec to visit and make the same excuse.
    - kitd 8y ago
      That's a ridiculous argument. If I refuse to appear in court, I can be arrested and charged with contempt of court. Is that normalising a "violent response to a nonviolent action"? Justice would be impotent in such a setup.
    - throwaway2048 8y ago
      Violence is how the government enforces law, harmful acts don't necessarily have to have a component of physical violence to be extremely bad for society (white collar fraud, misuse of identity documents to get stuff like loans, counterfeiting of currency, etc).
renegadesensei 8y ago
Must suck to have your sensitive information taken and used without your permission.
- wtfstatists 8y ago
  Oh I did not realize FB was pointing gun at people.
  - kevlawrence 8y ago
    No guns. Just lies and selling people out.
  - arethuza 8y ago
    I doubt the Serjeant-at-Arms has a gun, although apparently the role does include sometimes wearing a sword: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serjeant-at-Arms_of_the_House_of_Commons_(United_Kingdom) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serjeant-at-Arms_of_the_House_...
    - JJMcJ 8y ago
      > While serving the warrant and encouraging a witness to attend parliament "the Serjeant or his appointee may call on the full assistance of the civil authorities, including the police." From the Wikipedia article. So the Facebook employee was in fact under compulsion.
      - arethuza 8y ago
        Of course he was under compulsion - but I seriously doubt that anyone involved had a gun on them.
    - YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
      I think they carry a ceremonial mace, heavily ornamented with gold reliefs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serjeant-at-arms#/media/File:Mace_UK.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serjeant-at-arms#/media/File:M... I'd definitely not want to be bonked on the head with that. Fortunately, as the article you link to says, they can call the police to do the dirty job. "Fortunately", as in, the combined threat from the mace and the cops should suffice to convince most people.
bredren 8y ago
It’s interesting to see this accusation about Zuck trying to cover up his “failing” to recognize the transition to smartphones. I was working at perhaps the biggest iOS shop in the country at this time in Seattle. And I was regularly invited and attended the developer poker / presentation night events at FB’s Seattle office. At the time facebook had an open position for a mobile czar that continued to go unfilled for a long time. I know because I applied and watched it. This was when Facebook was refusing to build a native app—insisting the mobile web was a good enough experience. I was boots on the ground as so many big companies were embracing iOS, so there was no doubt Facebook was willfully ignoring mobile. Whether that failure required a coverup is a big leap though, so it would be very interesting if these documents included discussions suggesting this was the case.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  IIRC, the whole transition of Facebook from web app to iOS app was a complete fiasco, from a user perspective. It was at least a year, perhaps more before the app was usable. It would take minutes for a single page to load in the app. People hated it with the intensity of a thousand suns. I think you dodged a bullet not getting on board that train wreck. My guess is that Facebook only decided to go mobile-first when it realized that a phone is a much better personal data slurping device than a stationary desktop computer.
  - bredren 8y ago
    I also remember how bad the mobile app was, it was very poorly rated in the app store. It would lose auth even i think. The people at the firm I worked on couldn't believe how poorly it was built when big companies including Apple were making major progress on apps with very small teams. >I think you dodged a bullet not getting on board that train wreck. Maybe you're right. I did end up heading to the valley and applying to YC and eventually getting a couple companies funded, but hard to know. I am not fond of Facebook the product or its business these days but back then I thought it was cool and built apps on it very early. > My guess is that Facebook only decided to go mobile-first when it realized that a phone is a much better personal data slurping device than a stationary desktop computer. You may be right, but I think they also realized that mobile ads converted. I can't remember but someone could probably write a book about Facebook's move to Mobile on its own. Speaking of mobile privacy, I also remember that we were all aware of how messed up permissions on iOS were--in that you could read full contact list data silently. Not long after we had Path-Gate: http://technologyfront.com/journalism/2012/02/17.html http://technologyfront.com/journalism/2012/02/17.html
cellis 8y ago
Does anyone else flat out refuse to read The Register articles? I feel like I’m being gaslighted or slow trolled every time I do.
OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago
the precedence
Eridrus 8y ago
Am I the only one, or does it sound like someone tipped them off? How would one know that this guy had these documents, and be keeping a close enough eye on his travel?
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > How would one know that this guy had these documents They'd know he had access to them from public information about his job and the relevant court proceeding. Given the threat to use similar process on Zuck should he travel to the UK, I would assume that the Parliamentary committee involved has a way to get that kind of travel info about people of interest from the government, who, after all, works for and is answerable to the Parliament.
  - anpago 8y ago
    The UK is part of five eyes, if Facebook think they gather data..
  - Eridrus 8y ago
    Oh, do you have a link to this threat to Zuck? Had not heard about that.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      It's in the call-out box in the source article for this thread.
captainwhoreal 8y ago
I think UK should have nationalised Facebook to protect citizen's privacy. Why should Facebook even exist in private domain?

97 points by LinuxBender 8y ago

Facebook played fast and loose with privacy for over a decade. This might have worked in the US where corporate abuse and greed reigns supreme, but not so much in Europe. And Facebook elected to move its corporate nexus to Europe to tax dodge. Were they so deluded to think Europe actually caring about privacy wouldn't one day come back to bite them?

johnnyfaehell 8y ago
I think the key deluded part of Facebook was thinking just because Mark Zuckerberg isn't in the UK or other nations that want to talk to him that he can just ignore them. This move just goes to show how the laws of another country can affect you without you going to that country.
- nighthawk1 8y ago
  If there is one thing governments do not like it is being ignored and their power and reach is broad enough to make you comply in various ways.
IBM 8y ago
>And Facebook elected to move its corporate nexus to Europe to tax dodge. I don't think their HQ is in Europe but they probably have subsidiaries in Ireland, Netherlands or Luxembourg (like everyone else) for tax purposes. In any case, I don't think that would change anything in terms of avoiding privacy scrutiny.
antidesitter 8y ago
Europe is just as prone to corporate abuse and greed. See the new Copyright Directive pushed at the behest of European publishers.
- wowzap 8y ago
  Seriously. Does anybody think GDPR is more than just virtue signaling so they can fine companies?
auslander 8y ago
> Facebook played fast and loose with privacy for over a decade. It is their only business model, what else they can do?
YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
>> Facebook played fast and loose with privacy for over a decade. This might have worked in the US where corporate abuse and greed reigns supreme, but not so much in Europe. Unfortunately, we have plenty of that in Europe, too.
rmc 8y ago
Combined with becoming a massively popular and influencial media company. Facebook can swing elections. So people who get elected are gonna get suspicious.

lixtra 8y ago

> ... process during its court case against the Zuckerborg, in which it is alleging Facebook defrauded ... Seriously? What happened to journalism?

richardwhiuk 8y ago
Standard practice for the register I'm afraid.
stewartm 8y ago
You either need to read a lot more of The Reg, or none at all. The Reg is written with a certain brand of humour that is appreciated by a fair chunk of its tech readership. If you want a humour free version of the article, checkout the link to The Guardian article cited. Brace yourself for lots of speling mistakes however.
- SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  I stopped regularly reading "El Reg" years ago for this very reason. Perhaps I just grew up. It's a real shame they put up this barrier to entry as they've been behind some truly excellent investigative journalism over the years.
  - stewartm 8y ago
    I can understand that. Humour is a matter of taste so I can't imagine they hit the mark 100% of the time for anybody, certainly they don't for me. However given the weariness derived from seeing the same kind of tech issues/fails/corruption reported ad infinitum, I happily welcome an attempt at a bit of humour to lighten the mood a little.
  - acct1771 8y ago
    NY Post, same issue, different fashion.. They actually just did a great piece on Congresspeople sleeping in their offices because they can't afford two houses. Still get a "tabloids are bad" rap. A shame.
- 8y ago

throwaway2048 8y ago

This involves an interesting difference in the British parliamentary system of absolute parliamentary supremacy compared to the American principle of separation of powers. Basically they can pass a law that does anything, including ones for the start of investigation, the filing of criminal charges, and the seizure of evidence and assets. Facebook was very stupid to make a weak excuse of being tied up with legal process in an American court as the reason they refused to cooperate, because in the end the UK parliament can compel anything they want. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_sovereignty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_sovereignty

TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
Sending a Sergeant-at-Arms in person is the British diplomatic equivalent of parking tanks on your lawn. It's almost literally unprecedented, and is a signal that Parliament is very, very angry about this,
CaptainZapp 8y ago
What I thought is ironic as hell is Zuckerberg's (or the company's lawyers) attitude that England anyway has no jurisdiction and they can't be compelled to produce him, or even answer questions in an honest way. Fast forward: A California court has zero jurisdiction over the English parliament. About the funniest is the following statement by a Facebook spokesperson: “The materials obtained by the DCMS committee are subject to a protective order of the San Mateo Superior Court restricting their disclosure. We have asked the DCMS committee to refrain from reviewing them and to return them to counsel or to Facebook. We have no further comment.” I dare say that the fucks that Mr. Collins gives on the order of the San Mateo Superior Court can be counted with zero hands. Yeah, Mark; Karma really is a bitch.

londons_explore 8y ago

No government should have to resort to 'sneaky' measures like this. If you have a suspicion that a company is breaking the law, you ask a judge for permission to inspect them. If permission is granted, you show up at the main office and do your investigation. If a judge won't grant you permission do do that inspection, you drop the case entirely. None of this 'we used sneaky laws from centuries ago to take documents from a third party'.

kitd 8y ago
In the UK, Parliament is sovereign. FB had repeatedly refused to appear before a parliamentary committee to give evidence in the Cambridge Analytica case. Now, I'm not totally certain of the precise legal position, but because of its sovereignty, Parliament can act in a quasi-judicial way, so in effect, FB's actions can be seen as roughly equivalent to refusing a subpoena. FB's refusal authorised Parliament to seize the evidence they needed while the exec was on UK soil. FB have only themselves to blame.
- wtfstatists 8y ago
  You are basically normalizing violent response to a non-violent action. US can do that because FB is US company. UK cannot just because you happen to visit. Please realize that other states are taking notes at this situation. They are waiting for US/UK/etc exec to visit and make the same excuse.
  - kitd 8y ago
    That's a ridiculous argument. If I refuse to appear in court, I can be arrested and charged with contempt of court. Is that normalising a "violent response to a nonviolent action"? Justice would be impotent in such a setup.
  - throwaway2048 8y ago
    Violence is how the government enforces law, harmful acts don't necessarily have to have a component of physical violence to be extremely bad for society (white collar fraud, misuse of identity documents to get stuff like loans, counterfeiting of currency, etc).

renegadesensei 8y ago

Must suck to have your sensitive information taken and used without your permission.

wtfstatists 8y ago
Oh I did not realize FB was pointing gun at people.
- kevlawrence 8y ago
  No guns. Just lies and selling people out.
- arethuza 8y ago
  I doubt the Serjeant-at-Arms has a gun, although apparently the role does include sometimes wearing a sword: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serjeant-at-Arms_of_the_House_of_Commons_(United_Kingdom) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serjeant-at-Arms_of_the_House_...
  - JJMcJ 8y ago
    > While serving the warrant and encouraging a witness to attend parliament "the Serjeant or his appointee may call on the full assistance of the civil authorities, including the police." From the Wikipedia article. So the Facebook employee was in fact under compulsion.
    - arethuza 8y ago
      Of course he was under compulsion - but I seriously doubt that anyone involved had a gun on them.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
    I think they carry a ceremonial mace, heavily ornamented with gold reliefs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serjeant-at-arms#/media/File:Mace_UK.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serjeant-at-arms#/media/File:M... I'd definitely not want to be bonked on the head with that. Fortunately, as the article you link to says, they can call the police to do the dirty job. "Fortunately", as in, the combined threat from the mace and the cops should suffice to convince most people.

bredren 8y ago

It’s interesting to see this accusation about Zuck trying to cover up his “failing” to recognize the transition to smartphones. I was working at perhaps the biggest iOS shop in the country at this time in Seattle. And I was regularly invited and attended the developer poker / presentation night events at FB’s Seattle office. At the time facebook had an open position for a mobile czar that continued to go unfilled for a long time. I know because I applied and watched it. This was when Facebook was refusing to build a native app—insisting the mobile web was a good enough experience. I was boots on the ground as so many big companies were embracing iOS, so there was no doubt Facebook was willfully ignoring mobile. Whether that failure required a coverup is a big leap though, so it would be very interesting if these documents included discussions suggesting this was the case.

reaperducer 8y ago
IIRC, the whole transition of Facebook from web app to iOS app was a complete fiasco, from a user perspective. It was at least a year, perhaps more before the app was usable. It would take minutes for a single page to load in the app. People hated it with the intensity of a thousand suns. I think you dodged a bullet not getting on board that train wreck. My guess is that Facebook only decided to go mobile-first when it realized that a phone is a much better personal data slurping device than a stationary desktop computer.
- bredren 8y ago
  I also remember how bad the mobile app was, it was very poorly rated in the app store. It would lose auth even i think. The people at the firm I worked on couldn't believe how poorly it was built when big companies including Apple were making major progress on apps with very small teams. >I think you dodged a bullet not getting on board that train wreck. Maybe you're right. I did end up heading to the valley and applying to YC and eventually getting a couple companies funded, but hard to know. I am not fond of Facebook the product or its business these days but back then I thought it was cool and built apps on it very early. > My guess is that Facebook only decided to go mobile-first when it realized that a phone is a much better personal data slurping device than a stationary desktop computer. You may be right, but I think they also realized that mobile ads converted. I can't remember but someone could probably write a book about Facebook's move to Mobile on its own. Speaking of mobile privacy, I also remember that we were all aware of how messed up permissions on iOS were--in that you could read full contact list data silently. Not long after we had Path-Gate: http://technologyfront.com/journalism/2012/02/17.html http://technologyfront.com/journalism/2012/02/17.html

cellis 8y ago

Does anyone else flat out refuse to read The Register articles? I feel like I’m being gaslighted or slow trolled every time I do.

OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago

the precedence

Eridrus 8y ago

Am I the only one, or does it sound like someone tipped them off? How would one know that this guy had these documents, and be keeping a close enough eye on his travel?

dragonwriter 8y ago
> How would one know that this guy had these documents They'd know he had access to them from public information about his job and the relevant court proceeding. Given the threat to use similar process on Zuck should he travel to the UK, I would assume that the Parliamentary committee involved has a way to get that kind of travel info about people of interest from the government, who, after all, works for and is answerable to the Parliament.
- anpago 8y ago
  The UK is part of five eyes, if Facebook think they gather data..
- Eridrus 8y ago
  Oh, do you have a link to this threat to Zuck? Had not heard about that.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    It's in the call-out box in the source article for this thread.

captainwhoreal 8y ago

I think UK should have nationalised Facebook to protect citizen's privacy. Why should Facebook even exist in private domain?