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> which does seem pretty dumb if true Why is that? The alternative is to ask for everything and keep what's valuable, kind of how companies like Facebook do. W

> which does seem pretty dumb if true Why is that? The alternative is to ask for everything and keep what's valuable, kind of how companies like Facebook do. What other options do you see?

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
The alternative is for regulators to issue narrow, targeted requests for the information they need to investigate specific issues. I don't think the government should be able to tell a company "alright, hand over all your documents so we can make sure there's no evidence of wrongdoing in them".
- buran77 6y ago
  > narrow, targeted requests The investigators should ask exactly for the smoking gun, but they need the smoking gun to know exactly what to ask for. Imagine if when asking for a warrant the Police would have to say "we are looking for a knife on the left side of a shoe box under the defendant's bed". Oh the knife is wrapped in some tax returns and blood work results... bummer. You don't need to go much farther than your average internet search to see that it's nigh impossible to search so narrowly that only the best result comes up from the first try and doesn't contain any irrelevant information. And that's before considering that unlike internet searches companies go through a lot of effort to intentionally poison the well and mix up the now known search words throughout a big volume of irrelevant information to prove their point. This is what this request is about, buying that time. As I already said, you can't not spot the irony when a company insists they need very broad access to your data to monetize it, but complain when regulators need access to their data as part as an official investigation.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    In my area, that's indeed how police investigations work. They don't have to be quite that specific, but they do have to explain what specific things they're looking for and why they expect to find them. They couldn't say "well, it's possible you committed a murder, so we'll search your house to see if there's any murder evidence in it".
    - ggggtez 6y ago
      Let's not pretend that Facebook isn't accused of a myriad of anti-competitive practices. Not even Facebook is claiming that the EU doesn't have grounds for a search. They are simply saying the search is overbroad.
  - jariel 6y ago
    ? The irony is the other way around. FB is free, users provide information, FB doesn't sell it or share it, they use it to place ads. The EU government is concerned about 'privacy' while asking a private, foreign company to hand over arbitrary private data. Imagine the police pulling you over and asking you to show any emails which included the terms 'deal' or 'partying' or 'the green stuff'. The investigators are probably barking up the wrong tree.
    - wdb 6y ago
      Then this foreign company shouldn't do business in the EU. It's similar to those US laws they want to apply to the rest of the world
      - jariel 6y ago
        500 Million Europeans would beg to differ. By and large, everyone understands the trade off they are making (i.e. FB can put ads in your stream) for a free Social Networking service, and it's fine.
        speedgoose 6y ago
        Facebook is doing a bit more than showing ads. They are tracking people over the web, deciding the information stream for many, collecting a huge amount of data, helping to spread fake news, and helped to get someone stupid elected as the leader of the world biggest power.
        piva00 6y ago
        Nope, I wouldn't beg to differ so don't put your words in my mouth. And nope, by and large the majority of non-tech savvy people don't understand the trade off they are making. I've done research for data privacy advocacy here in Sweden, in Germany and Norway and the vast majority of people have no idea about the kind of data that FB, Google, etc., are able to collect about you, across the web or your phone and so on. People are in the dark about this, they have a vague notion that "oh, they collect my data" but they have no idea about the implications of this, so no, it's not fine when your business model depends on the ignorance of people to thrive... That's exploiting, not business.
jariel 6y ago
"> which does seem pretty dumb if true Why is that? " Because governments have no right to ask private groups to hand over arbitrary, speculative bits of information. They can ask for specific things relating to specific matters with a court order, but broad searches for loose search terms is ridiculous and probably unconstitutional.
- oneplane 6y ago
  Yes they do. Maybe you'd like government not to have that power, but the reality is that we elected officials that made this lawful.
  - jariel 6y ago
    No they absolutely don't and every modern nation has rules against arbitrary search and seizure. In fact, this looks pretty crazy upon first glance, these keyword searches are very arbitrary and broad, it wouldn't hold up in most other scenarios, FB is right to take this to court.
    - petre 6y ago
      It's not arbitrary search and seizure. It's a legitimate request for FB to produce documents because they're under suspicion of abusing their market position.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

> which does seem pretty dumb if true Why is that? The alternative is to ask for everything and keep what's valuable, kind of how companies like Facebook do. What other options do you see?

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

The alternative is for regulators to issue narrow, targeted requests for the information they need to investigate specific issues. I don't think the government should be able to tell a company "alright, hand over all your documents so we can make sure there's no evidence of wrongdoing in them".

buran77 6y ago
> narrow, targeted requests The investigators should ask exactly for the smoking gun, but they need the smoking gun to know exactly what to ask for. Imagine if when asking for a warrant the Police would have to say "we are looking for a knife on the left side of a shoe box under the defendant's bed". Oh the knife is wrapped in some tax returns and blood work results... bummer. You don't need to go much farther than your average internet search to see that it's nigh impossible to search so narrowly that only the best result comes up from the first try and doesn't contain any irrelevant information. And that's before considering that unlike internet searches companies go through a lot of effort to intentionally poison the well and mix up the now known search words throughout a big volume of irrelevant information to prove their point. This is what this request is about, buying that time. As I already said, you can't not spot the irony when a company insists they need very broad access to your data to monetize it, but complain when regulators need access to their data as part as an official investigation.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  In my area, that's indeed how police investigations work. They don't have to be quite that specific, but they do have to explain what specific things they're looking for and why they expect to find them. They couldn't say "well, it's possible you committed a murder, so we'll search your house to see if there's any murder evidence in it".
  - ggggtez 6y ago
    Let's not pretend that Facebook isn't accused of a myriad of anti-competitive practices. Not even Facebook is claiming that the EU doesn't have grounds for a search. They are simply saying the search is overbroad.
- jariel 6y ago
  ? The irony is the other way around. FB is free, users provide information, FB doesn't sell it or share it, they use it to place ads. The EU government is concerned about 'privacy' while asking a private, foreign company to hand over arbitrary private data. Imagine the police pulling you over and asking you to show any emails which included the terms 'deal' or 'partying' or 'the green stuff'. The investigators are probably barking up the wrong tree.
  - wdb 6y ago
    Then this foreign company shouldn't do business in the EU. It's similar to those US laws they want to apply to the rest of the world
    - jariel 6y ago
      500 Million Europeans would beg to differ. By and large, everyone understands the trade off they are making (i.e. FB can put ads in your stream) for a free Social Networking service, and it's fine.
      - speedgoose 6y ago
        Facebook is doing a bit more than showing ads. They are tracking people over the web, deciding the information stream for many, collecting a huge amount of data, helping to spread fake news, and helped to get someone stupid elected as the leader of the world biggest power.
      - piva00 6y ago
        Nope, I wouldn't beg to differ so don't put your words in my mouth. And nope, by and large the majority of non-tech savvy people don't understand the trade off they are making. I've done research for data privacy advocacy here in Sweden, in Germany and Norway and the vast majority of people have no idea about the kind of data that FB, Google, etc., are able to collect about you, across the web or your phone and so on. People are in the dark about this, they have a vague notion that "oh, they collect my data" but they have no idea about the implications of this, so no, it's not fine when your business model depends on the ignorance of people to thrive... That's exploiting, not business.

jariel 6y ago

"> which does seem pretty dumb if true Why is that? " Because governments have no right to ask private groups to hand over arbitrary, speculative bits of information. They can ask for specific things relating to specific matters with a court order, but broad searches for loose search terms is ridiculous and probably unconstitutional.

oneplane 6y ago
Yes they do. Maybe you'd like government not to have that power, but the reality is that we elected officials that made this lawful.
- jariel 6y ago
  No they absolutely don't and every modern nation has rules against arbitrary search and seizure. In fact, this looks pretty crazy upon first glance, these keyword searches are very arbitrary and broad, it wouldn't hold up in most other scenarios, FB is right to take this to court.
  - petre 6y ago
    It's not arbitrary search and seizure. It's a legitimate request for FB to produce documents because they're under suspicion of abusing their market position.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]