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Facebook to move UK users to California terms, avoiding EU privacy rules
- tick_tock_tick 6y agoHow can any official in the UK or EU say with a straight face they don't think every tech company hands over data to the US government when they themselves hand their own citizens data to the US government.
- thelittleone 6y agoLying and deceit has always been a large part of politics but politicians used to go to some lengths to cover it up. Now it's as if we are so used to it and have a accepted this reality that they no longer need to waste energy covering it up.
- Hokusai 6y agoTech companies, or any company for that matter, will do what is best for themselves. Regulations exist to protect consumers and other companies from accusative behaviors. Remove the regulation and the 'we care for your privacy' message disappears with it. Because they never cared for your privacy, they will just doing what was mandatory.
- chrisseaton 6y ago> Regulations exist to protect consumers and other companies from accusative behaviors. I think this is possibly a bit naive. Regulations also exist to protect powerful people's businesses, to push personal agendas, and to further political aims even if those are not actually in the interests of any consumers. Also sometimes people think they're making a regulation to protect consumers, but actually it makes things worse.
- dkdk8283 6y agoRegulations are fluid and often end up raising the barrier to entry often stifling the competition.
- amaccuish 6y agoCompanies are often fluid, especially smaller ones, and can more easily adapt to a changing world.
- dcolkitt 6y agoThis just isn’t consistent with the empirical evidence whatsoever. An overwhelming amount of economic analysis shows that the burden of regulation disproportionately falls on small business. That doesn’t necessarily mean that there aren’t other justifications for any given regulation. But ain’t no small business owner or entrepreneur in history ever said “Boy! All these regulations sure are making my life easy”
- tstrimple 6y agoYeah, we never see examples of small teams disrupting large markets with entrenched competitors. I'm afraid with taxi medallion regulations, we'll never see any competition in that space.
- dcolkitt 6y agoI don't understand the point you're making. Are you arguing that tax medallion regulations helped ride share companies enter the market?
- alisonkisk 6y agoParent was attempting sarcasm, which makes their writing essentially meaningless because the reader has to gursst if they meant what they wrote or the opposite.
- zdragnar 6y ago
- tomxor 6y agoWe are people foremost, not consumers, especially in the context of privacy. Please do not use their terminology, it empowers them by framing everything in the eyes of corporate interests.
- SeriousM 6y agoWhen you enter a shop you become a customer, not a human being with feelings. Same goes for those platforms. You enter it and you become a consumer. If you're like it or not.
- amsvie 6y agoYou enter the shop as a human being, and there's certain (human) rights that should come with that. We're talking here about the right to get a copy of your own data, the right to be forgotten when you want to leave, the right to be informed about data breaches, and a right to agree to types of data processing. Your analogy is "you enter a shop and cannot leave again, may be abused, and lose control."
- Hokusai 6y agoThat makes little sense when you think about that. The constitution of your country does not stop at the door of a business. All your constitutional rights as a citizen enter the store with you. You have also human rights granted by international treaties. Nothing stops applying because you enter a shop.
- 8note 6y agoFacebook isn't selling me anything though. Neither is google
- lmilcin 6y agoIt even is sometimes weaponized to help fight competition. For example, by making it expensive to conduct a certain type of business and requiring even higher entry costs (things like certification, licences, etc.) it actually favors large, established businesses. Case in point: Uber suggesting minimum wage for their workers, some time ago. Think about this, the company refuses to recognize them as their work force but are fine to suggest a minimum wage. As it happens, the minimum wage would put their competition out of business at that time so it must have been seen as favorable for Uber. The competition was not so well funded and so this would be an attrition war at a point in time when Uber was potentially able to win it and wipe all competition out. This shows that you don't even need corrupt bureaucrats to have regulation steered this or that way by private business.
- trident5000 6y agoMy favorite is the NY LLC publishing requirement. To start a business you must publish that you started a business for 6 consecutive weeks which costs thousands. Wonder what back door corrupt deal was made on that one.
- lmilcin 6y agoI can only suspect that this made sense at some point in time when wealthy people started their day with a pipe and a magazine to read.
- trident5000 6y agoPoints to another issue that there is no active effort to reduce old laws so they just pile up.
- WaitWaitWha 6y agoGot a better one. Try to buy a car in the USA, directly from a manufacturer.
- skykooler 6y ago
- leetcrew 6y agoor put more generally, rules exist to solve someone's problem. the "problem" may or may not be the one explicitly addressed by the rule, and the "someone" is usually the person who made the rule.
- mikem170 6y agoAgreed. I'd add that most regulations are designed by career politicians and corporate lobbyists. It's too bad the people aren't empowered to design these regulations amongst ourselves.
- oblio 6y agoIt's not naive, that's why we have laws. Without laws, the people/groups you mention would just use the law of the jungle - might makes right - to get what they want. At least with laws they have to somewhat accommodate this process to get what they want, frequently compromising along the way. I'm not saying that all laws are perfect, but let's not get overwhelming cynicism get the best of us.
- typenil 6y agoBeing skeptical of the motivations of those who write and lobby for regulation is not overly cynical - it's a recognition of reality. The less skeptical we are, the more self-serving regulation we'll get.
- hugi 6y agoI am very skeptical that Facebook has ever acted in their users best interest. The EU privacy laws and the GDPR are a clearly beneficial law to citizens, protecting them against hostile companies.
- treeman79 6y agoHad a boss that tried very hard to get us to develop some Voice verification system. Apparently he knew all the right senators to get a regulation passed making it so all health companies would be forced to license our software. Wasn’t technically feasible at the time. Might be now. Freaked me out as to how evil it was.
- vkou 6y ago1. It's incredibly naive to think that the sole purpose of regulations is to protect powerful businesses. If you think that's the case, what would you describe the purpose of, say, worker safety regulations is? Food inspectors? 2. Of course they further political aims. Anything that has to do with law is political, by definition. This statement makes regulations sound scary and sinister, but actually imparts no information to the discussion. A world without regulations won't be some libertarian paradise. It'll be an authoritarian dystopia, where the powerful can do what they please, and you will have zero proactive recourse against them, and very limited reactive recourse. PS. Consider that a rule, or even aversion against regulation is itself a regulation. Which absolutely has side effects[1] that protect powerful businesses, and is pursued for personal and political aims. [1] Very obvious ones, actually.
- chrisseaton 6y ago> It's incredibly naive to think that the sole purpose of regulations is to protect powerful businesses. I listed two other example purposes in my comment alone! So obviously I don't think this. > Of course they further political aims. Did you miss the rest of the sentence? I said specifically ...even if those are not actually in the interests of any consumers.
- harry8 6y agoThis is called "Regulatory Capture" and is a form of corruption. It is not /why/ regulation exists any more than the murder of Mr Floyd is why police exist. Regulatory capture is utterly rampant right now and a huge threat to democracy. This is true regardless of one's personal politics or beliefs about big vs small government or political party of preference. It's a cancer and more dangerous than people think.
- treeman79 6y agoVote for people that want to reduce regulations. They’re easy to spot as news/entertainment all mocks them for being “mean” There is also the plainspeak people. Law written so that average people can understand them. Lawyers less needed.
- Retric 6y agoBe careful of abstract calls to action without specifics. Many calls to “reduce taxes” actually mean a subsidy for some industry in the form of targeted tax breaks. Reducing regulation just as often targets insiders as it does actually improve things. Often after a dictator takes power they do a crackdown on ‘corruption’ which has popular support. What their actually doing is consolidating power, but if you call it a corruption crackdown then it sounds like a great thing. What you want is someone that says something specific not platitudes which can mean anything, and are impossible to hold people accountable. Remove a single regulation and they can call it a win. But fail to go to the moon, build a wall, reduce spending etc, and they just failed.
- RobertoG 6y agoRegulations and laws define what game are we playing. Of course, players are going to try to change the game to their convenience. It's our work, as a society, to be watchful and try that the game is one that everybody have a chance to enjoy. You can't do that without rules, in fact you can't have a game without rules. Even private property is just a rule.
- jnxx 6y agoAlso, reguilations and rules can help to create trust, and this is what any business is based on. In this way, it helps business.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoSure. Businesses will try to protect themselves with regulation to whatever extent possible - it's what the market does (which is why I find it silly to discuss private markets and governance as if they were two separate and independent things). But "no regulations" isn't a solution to regulatory capture. It'll only make competition more cut throat (possibly involving real throats being cut), and companies more anticonsumer. (Not that any of this matters much these days - companies like Uber demonstrate that you can absolutely run an illegal operation in western countries, and end up with a double-digit billion dollars IPO.)
- MonAlternatiu 6y ago> and the 'we care for your privacy' message disappears with it I don't think so. The actions behind the words will disappear for sure, but not the message itself
- _jal 6y ago> Regulations exist to protect consumers and other companies from accusative behaviors. This is what people want to believe. But I think you'll find that regulations exist for a large number of reasons, some of which seem noble and others much less so. Frequently, they exist to provide disproportionate protections and perks to the connected.
- jnxx 6y agoWell, for whom regulation works out depends on how your government is. But also, a lack of regulation or oversight can have a lot of consequences. A good example is the Greenfell tower tragedy - fire protection authorities in the EU have warned for years about these claddings and materials, and in the EU there are not stricter regulations. And they save lives. So, when regulations do not work for your advantage as a normal citizen, maybe the problem is not the existence of regulation but the lack of democratic representation and integrity in your government and the bodies it creates and controls.
- andyjpb 6y agoI think this outlook is very much part of the reason that Britons are worried about Facebook's move to Californian terms. In the UK we do have very well established "Consumer Law" which is there explicitly to protect the consumer and recognises that they are often not otherwise in a powerful position. The most relevant stuff for Facebook is the data protection stuff, but another example, relevant to other online transactions, is the Distance Selling Regulations ( https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesses https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesse... ). This gives the customer the right to cancel, without a reason, for up to 14 days after the goods are delivered. If the business doesn't explicitly tell you this then your right to cancel is extended to 12 months.
- robin_reala 6y agoIt’s never “we care for your privacy” but rather “we value your privacy”, which is easy to read as “we assign a value to your privacy”. In that light, the messaging becomes clearer.
- furyg3 6y agoThis. Companies cannot feel emotions.
- smt88 6y agoMark Zuckerberg has complete control of Facebook, and he feels emotions. Elon Musk's emotions certainly dictate a lot of his companies' behavior. Companies aren't emotionless if they are essentially an extension of an individual.
- Dahoon 6y agoI disagree that Zuckerberg feels emotions.
- emptyparadise 6y agoThey sure do like to pretend they can, though.
- alkonaut 6y agoWhat’s best for a company could include doing what’s right in the eyes of its customers.
- ngold 6y agoFacebook makes 7 bucks a month on every user. Don't let Facebook make 7 bucks a month on every user.
- zz_throwaway_zz 6y ago>Regulations exist to protect consumers and other companies from accusative behaviors. Regulations exist because the government created them. Everything else is secondary.
- KorematsuFred 6y agoWhile I agree with part 1, part 2 of your argument is simply not true. The regulation has very little to do with the benevolence of our political masters towards us peasants privacy. It is the users who care about privacy (which they themselves don't really understand) which both the corporations and governments have spotted, while corporations like Apple, Google, Facebook etc. have come up different strategies for competition with each other on privacy, governments have mostly come up with nonsensical legislations most funded by these very tech companies or some other rent seeking establishment like EU. None of those regulations have made web safer for us on the contrary it has put a compliance cost on everyone. The best innovations around privacy have come from the desire to prove to users that the company respects your privacy. Regulation has mostly given us fake cookie related banners that have become a spam in themselves.
- jnxx 6y agoThe 'we care for your privacy' is not mandatory, it is just whitewashing. In fact, I see it by now as a warning sign that unnecessary processing takes place.
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- niklasrde 6y ago"Facebook’s UK users will remain subject to UK privacy law, which for now tracks the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)" - so, what changes for users?
- chrisseaton 6y agoI think 'for now' could possibly be pretty short.
- eterm 6y agoWhat changes is that the regulation won't be backed by the EU, so perhaps Facebook sees the UK regulator as toothless, or at least less likely to pursue things?
- pmlnr 6y agoWhat's toothless is trying to enforce EU rules on tech companies based in Ireland. EU rules look great, until one of the nations decide to sh*t on it, see Hungary (I'm a Hungarian citizen, but not really proud of it any more) vs EU recently on budgeting, or Ireland being unwilling to actually enforce any EU regulations.
- Silhouette 6y agoIt would be odd to see the Information Commissioner (the UK's data protection regulator) as toothless, given it has so far been among the most severe in penalising large businesses under the much greater powers it acquired under the GDPR. This could be more of a strategic move from Facebook, anticipating the UK government wanting a quick post-Brexit trade deal with the US and having limited practical room to manoeuvre in negotiating one. In particular, the UK government presumably doesn't want to commit political suicide, so it's very unlikely to compromise on issues like the NHS or food standards. That means it needs something else, and probably something big, that it can bring to the table. And that could well be favours for US tech firms that are already here, such as agreeing not to go after them for extra taxes and brushing anything resembling privacy protections under the carpet. Whether that is a good bet for Facebook to make is a different question. If the Johnson administration doesn't manage to seal a deal very quickly -- and it does have a few other things on its plate right now, not to mention a known-hostile incoming Biden administration across the pond -- then there is a decent chance that any future US-UK trade deal will actually be concluded a few years later. By that time, our respective governments might well be led by Kamala Harris and Keir Starmer, for example, in which case Big Tech might have much bigger worries anyway. But since no-one has a crystal ball, presumably those tech firms are going to try to insulate themselves from unnecessary risk in the fallout from Brexit, and this move by Facebook probably achieves that at a reasonable cost right now, regardless of what might happen some years later.
- stickfigure 6y agoThis is the balkanization of the internet. We've lived through a brief period of free exchange among peoples, but it's soon over. I predict only one viable future for all technology companies, big and small: Pick a single national jurisdiction, keep your employees and servers inside it.
- Krasnol 6y agoIt's been over for quite some time. I'd explain more but this content is not available in your country.
- est31 6y agoI wouldn't really call it balkanization. Most services still operate across borders. Thanks to the internet I have contact to peers from all over the world. Some aspects of the internet will become more localized in the future, but generally inter border communication is still growing I think. And in fact on an EU level, rules are unified instead of balkanized. The digital single market project brought things like the GDPR or the abolishment of EU roaming charges, allowing you to travel around the EU without having to pay extra to your phone provider.
- Sargos 6y agoEU is still pretty balkanized when it comes to rules and is a headache for businesses especially when compared to the US.
- oblio 6y agoThey're trying to improve that but it impinges on member state sovereignty so it has to be delegated by them. It will take time.
- kazen44 6y agois this really the case though? it seems state law results in a ton of balkanization in the USA aswell. bigger barriers to doing business is probably cultural moreso then rules themselves.
- ayroblu 6y agoI know people will be up in arms about tech companies abusing data, whatever that means, but what I don't fully understand from the article is why this is happening. > Facebook’s UK users will remain subject to UK privacy law, which for now tracks the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) My understanding is similar to this, which is that all the privacy laws are the same, so is this a Brexit thing because the UK is outside of the EU so it's a legal liability to hold information within the EU (Facebook Ireland as it says)?
- rahoulb 6y agoMy guess is this is exactly what the "deal/no-deal" divergence talks are about. Today, the UK and EU GDPR rules are in alignment. But on the 2nd January, there's nothing to stop the UK from throwing them away.
- jonplackett 6y agoI thought the plan was that on Brexit all existing EU laws would become UK law, until we decide the change them. Did that not happen in the end?
- tobylane 6y agoEU directives such as GDPR come into power by being localised and enacted, ie made into UK law. The data protection act 2018 will cover us up until it’s reversed, which is what some of us fear.
- detaro 6y agoThe R in GDPR is not for directive. As a regulation, it applies directly.
- Silhouette 6y agoFYI, that's not quite correct. The EU makes laws in several ways. A directive is, as you said, a measure that individual member states then incorporate into their own national law to give it legal weight. But the GDPR is, as its name suggests, a regulation, which means it carries legal weight immediately and in its own right across the entire EU. The UK's position is strange because of Brexit, but it seems the practical position of all recent governments has been that existing EU laws should be transposed into UK national laws where necessary and with the required changes to make sense, until such time as our national authorities might decide to deviate from them. Primary legislation has already been made to that effect. The big question is what "that effect" actually is, given the huge volume of legislation affected and the potential ambiguity in what changes are required for any given law of EU origin to continue to make sense in a post-Brexit UK.
- Fl8ixIDN 6y agoNo need to speculate. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2019/419/made https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2019/419/made
- 6y ago
- wdb 6y agoGuess that's why Revolut or Monzo asked what my citizenship status was. To do the same in short term future.
- McDev 6y agoThat would be due to this https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-us-automatic-exchange-of-information-agreement https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-us-automatic-e...
- wdb 6y agoDo you need to change your location to UK or how does it decide you are a UK user?
- richrichardsson 6y agoThis is a pertinent question. I set my account up in the UK but now reside in Croatia. Facebook has not been explicitly given my nationality, so I would assume they have to err on the side of caution and keep me under EU terms?
- hypertele-Xii 6y agoFree exchange among peoples is alive and well. It is easier today to make a website and share anything than it has ever been in the history of civilization. All this is is the reining in of a few greedy corporations that offer information-sharing platforms in exchange for exploitation. New communities will pop up, and old ones resurface.
- dantheman 6y agoHow are people being exploited? Where is the harm?
- filoleg 6y agoThey get shown ads that might be more relevant to them than just an ad picked at random, which might make them more likely to buy the product displayed in the ad. I guess that could lead to some extra harm to their wallets, but otherwise I am with you on this one.
- erhk 6y agoThe information necessary to do that is stored, could be used for other things in the future by that company, could be stolen, could be subpoena'd. It's also taken without explicit consent or explanation of what is recorded. Bullets are just pieces of metal and gunpowder, why are you afraid of them?
- hugi 6y agoNote that they also don't just sell "ads", they sell psychological manipulation. Yes, product ad targeting is one type of manipulation but where the real danger lies is when they target us with ideology. It's an expressely evil system.
- bonoboTP 6y agoWhere does ideology stop? In some sense all the ads blend into one meta-ad, an implicit one, that teaches us what to value in life. I mean something of the same nature which used to be the "picket fence suburb house, 2 kids and a dog", but is something else today. Slavoj Zizek (controversial I know) has good observations about this, that ideology is precisely the whole framing, which is invisible from the inside. You don't notice it as something "sold to you", it's deeper than that, it's something that informs what you should strive for. Ideas like "if only you could afford XYZ, things would become so much more $positive_adjective". But not explicitly. Through implication, stories, association. That you need to work more, build a career, buy better things, or become free, express your inner authentic self through self-expression using this and that brand, this and that political slogan etc. I anticipate that this is already too much of a cliche for some people, while for others it's just a strange way to look at things...
- mrtksn 6y agoHow these rules apply for people with multiple citizenships and residence? That’s the case with a lot of people in Europe. How to find out to which jurisdiction my FB data is bound to?
- dvcrn 6y agoIt’s not about citizenship but where you live. In place A the rules of place A apply. If place A is part of the EU, EU laws apply.
- avianlyric 6y agoIncorrect. With GDPR the EU extended their power to protect all EU citizens regardless of residency in, or out, of the EU. Of course the EU will have trouble enforcing that protection against companies that don't operate in the EU. But the protection remains, even if it's practically unenforceable.
- Dahoon 6y agoIncorrect. It protects PII in the EU. It has nothing to do with EU citizenship. It doesn't try to enforce outside the EU either. If you want to move PII out of the EU you have to agree by the rules given. That's not the EU trying to enforce anything outside of the EU but you making an agreement to move data outside the EU on certain terms. It is not the same thing as trying to force EU law on non-EU. I don't know why people keep repeating this myth. Laws like these are old as dirt. It could as well have been about blood samples from Denmark used in research in the US: the samples are protected by Danish law and to use them in the US you have to agree to certain rules. Again an example of you saying you will follow certain rules to be allowed to transport and use the samples outside Denmark, not Denmark forcing their laws on anything in another country. You are free to not sign anything and not use or move the blood samples or PII anywhere.
- Spare_account 6y agoI'm British and have a British passport and I permanently reside in the UK but I'm also technically an Irish citizen because my Irish father was born in Ireland. I have never applied for an Irish passport but I am automatically an Irish citizen based on my ancestry. Does Facebook know this? Do I need to inform them to benefit from GDPR protections on an ongoing basis? How the hell is any of this enforceable?
- noja 6y agoSo where will they be paying tax now if not Ireland?
- OJFord 6y agoWhat? (the Republic of) Ireland is not part of the UK, and remains in the EU. This is about end user licence/privacy/terms agreements, not corporate taxation.
- swarnie_ 6y agoN.I and EIRE are very different things, we had a couple of wars about it i think...
- Smaug123 6y agoIf you need a quick run-down: * The UK is the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". Great Britain is the largest island in its archipelago (the British Isles); Northern Ireland is a region situated on the island of Ireland (another island in that archipelago). * Another region of the island of Ireland is (the bulk of) the sovereign state the Republic of Ireland, a country which is part of the EU. The Republic of Ireland is the country where many companies headquarter in the EU for tax efficiency. * Alongside Northern Ireland, the other three countries which make up the UK are England, Wales, and Scotland. Those three countries are all primarily located on Great Britain. Some other islands in the archipelago are not part of the UK at all (e.g. the Isle of Man); some other islands in the archipelago are part of one of England, Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland. To confuse the island of Ireland with the United Kingdom, or to identify the Republic of Ireland as part of the UK, is deeply offensive to some (many?) Irish people. It is also a sore point to certain people across the island of Ireland that Northern Ireland is part of the UK, and that the island of Ireland is not a unified state. Confusingly enough, citizens of the UK are almost always referred to as "British citizens" whatever their relation to the island of Great Britain; this is a strange piece of terminology because if "British" here means "Great British" then it appears to exclude Northern Ireland, while if it means "of the British archipelago" then it appears to include (for example) the Republic of Ireland.
- 6y ago
- KukiAirani 6y agoPersonally, I think the GDPR cookie notifications have severely degraded the user experience of the web. I also think it's become just another "Terms and Conditions" - something that people reflexively accept because they want to get on with using a product. Future regulations with teeth, but don't exist yet, are things like: - Data portability: I should be able to export my entire Facebook account in full in a standardized format and easily transfer it to any other social network of my choosing. - Algorithmic control: I should be able to choose which recommendation algorithms are being used on me, or opt out of algorithms entirely. - Algorithmic transparency: As a consumer, I should be able to see something similar to what Facebook's growth team sees. What specific changes caused people in my cohort to increase their watch time by 2%? Was it better button placement, which I'd be okay with, or was it an increase in conspiracy content, which might not be? All of these things might be huge overhauls and difficult for the social media companies to deliver, but if you are pushing content in front of billions of people's faces for hours a day you should have an equivalent immense level of responsibility.
- dmitriid 6y ago> Personally, I think the GDPR cookie notifications have severely degraded the user experience of the web. The absolute vast majority of cookie banners are actually illegal under GDPR. One downside of GDPR isn't the banners, it's inaction by EU authorities which should've cracked down on these practices long ago. 1. Cookies essential for the functionality of your website (such as session cookies) don't need consent, and are explicitly allowed (you need to have an easily accessible clear-text explanation of what they do) 2. Pre-selected boxes do not constitute consent 3. You must provide a simple "opt out of all and proceed" button 4. You are not allowed to degrade functionality if user has opted out of non-essential cookies 5. You are not allowed to load any non-essential cookies before consent is given
- vrperson 6y agoWhat is meant by 4)? So users have the right to see a web site without ads? I think if users don't consent, you should be allowed to block their access to your web site?
- offtop5 6y agoCan't the UK respond by blocking FB ?
- vrperson 6y agoWhy should they?
- chrisseaton 6y agoNot sure why you think they would? They're not breaking any regulations by doing this.
- ldargin 6y agoWelcome to the United States of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
- dane-pgp 6y agoSoon to become the United States of England and Wales.
- swarnie_ 6y agoNot before 2030ish
- oblio 6y agoWhy not just "United States"? England would be the most populous state and Northern Ireland and Wales could duke it out with Mississippi and Alabama :-p I'm assuming that Scotland would not want any part of this, that's why I'm not including it.
- selimthegrim 6y agoAren't half of their cousins in MS and AL anyway?
- kridsdale1 6y agoWe could just circle round to New England
- lmedinas 6y agoobligatory comment: You should have stayed in Europe friends...
- swarnie_ 6y agoThis will effect people still using Facebook in 2020, they only have themselves to blame.
- chris_wot 6y agoAnother wonderful change for UK users as a result of Brexit!
- optimalsolver 6y agoMight as well move them to Alpha Centauri terms so you can legally kill them too.
- humps 6y ago"Facebook’s UK users will remain subject to UK privacy law, which for now tracks the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)."
- that_guy_iain 6y agoHow is this legal? Since EU members have to create laws for implement EU laws. So each country has a law for GDPR, including the UK. Those laws aren't going to suddenly stop being on the books in the new year.
- jnxx 6y agoThat's an interesting point. As far as I remember, there is quite a lot of EU laws which did become UK laws. Aparts from the question of the benefits to do so, it would take many many years to disentangle that. So, the UK governments solution is that all these laws will be re-written by the government in one big package and the UK parliament gives more or less an advance approval to that. I am probably not the only one who sees this as a significant weakening of parliamentary democracy in the UK.
- buzer 6y ago[edit] UK situation regarding GDPR might be a bit different though as, if I understood correctly, they implemented GDPR as separate national law (instead of it just being EU regulation). https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/introduction/enacted https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/introduction/en... GDPR is not an EU directive. Directives are the ones that member states will need to adopt to their own laws. One example would be consumer rights directive. It gives a list of goals, but member states can decide how to archive them. Regulations, like GDPR, come in effect automatically on the whole EU. One example of these, in addition to GDPR, would be various economic sanctions. If someone leaves EU, they would still keep all those laws they implemented before but are free to change if they wish by following their own law making procedures. However, they would no longer need to care about any of the regulations (they may need to follow some if they wish to trade with EU). They are free to still adhere to them if they wish. They may need to adopt some laws for them if their national regulation bodies don't have necessary rights to enforce such regulation (as earlier EU regulation would have triumphed national law).
- typenil 6y ago> U.S. courts have held that constitutional protections against unreasonable searches do not apply to non-citizens overseas. In effect it's harder and harder to find cases where the 4th amendment protections apply to US citizens, either.
- furyg3 6y agoI never understood this. If the freedoms outlined in the constitution are universal and inalienable, shouldn't the US also apply them, well, universally? Like do you believe in them or not?
- tengbretson 6y agoIt's not a contradiction to say that you have inalienable rights and that it is not the duty of the US government to protect them.
- colejohnson66 6y agoBut it is the duty of the US government to not violate them. It’s hypocritical to do otherwise.
- avianlyric 6y agoNot wrong, but the constitution is meant to be a limit on the US government. They don't have to protect them from others, but surely it shouldn't be willfully trampling those rights through its own conduct either.
- humanrebar 6y agoThe Constitution is based on inalienable rights (speech, worship, privacy, etc.), but it's not a list of inalienable rights as such. There's nothing inalienable about presidential succession, bicameral legislatures, or the electoral college, for instance.
- fastball 6y agoThe purpose of the US was to protect these rights for their own citizens / residents. Protecting those rights for the entire world is a bit out-of-scope.
- renewiltord 6y agoCCPA covers them so it's not terrible.
- lemonspat 6y agoIANAL, but I don't think it does. CCPA only covers California citizens. I can't perform any action under CCPA as a non-Californian
- renewiltord 6y agoOh yes, I thought they meant they'd treat them as California residents but they didn't really say that.
- Desian 6y agoI don't use Facebook. Planning in near future to stop using any centralised service or monopolised platform (Hey Apple how are you doing?). The move for control over Big Tech is not to serve the users, privacy is the marketing pitch. Everything has to do with future in which Governments want to share big data and control over citizens with Big Tech. It's all about power and money. The years of Internet as a vehicle for people to communicate and grow is over. Get on with it. You are the consumer (even Obama in the past clearly has stated Consumer, not Human) there is no political agenda that will change this outcome. The only right (for now) that you have is to vote with your money. This is it. In the next 2-3 years, regulations and big business will make Internet practically unusable. I am waiting VPN to be outlawed and kicking the switch off for good..
- frereubu 6y agoI think the headline here is a bit clickbaity. The post-EU UK has adopted the EU's GDPR legislation wholesale, and Facebook explicitly says that data will not be treated differently than that of EU citizens. So while this might "avoid" EU privacy rules in some stretched interpretation of "avoid", in fact it will be avoiding them by applying an identical set of rules. That is, unless the UK government changes its data protection legislation at some point, which is another kettle of fish.
- another-dave 6y agoI don't think it's another kettle of fish, I think it's exactly what this article is about — the only reason for them to make this change is as a pre-cursor to a divergence in the UK/EU privacy laws (EU further strengthening their laws after Brexit, or UK weakening theirs). They've given a vague statement to defend this being necessary — "Like other companies, Facebook has had to make changes to respond to Brexit" — even though Reuters point out Twitter as an example of a company _not_ making a change like this. Also, Facebook haven't explicitly said that they won't treat data differently to EU citizens, but that "There will be no change to the privacy controls or the services Facebook offers to people in the UK", which is subtly different.
- pavon 6y agoI agree that preparation for potential divergence of the law is a major reason for this change, but even if that doesn't happen it still makes sense from a jurisdictional point of view. Having interactions between a US company and UK citizen be beholden to EU law enforcement, when neither of those countries are part of the EU just complicates things for no good reason. There are likely other complications regarding movement of data between UK, EU and US that can be simplified by applying those equivalent UK-GDRP laws on movement of data, but now just between UK and US.
- M2Ys4U 6y agoThe UK GDPR is not exactly the same as the EU GDPR. To give one example, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has no authority to bind the ICO. The recent fin of Twitter by the Irish DPO was subject to that mechanism (Ireland tried to fine Twitter, the EDPB said the fine was too low and it was increased).
- tannerbrockwell 6y agoAs if. Do you know how many moving trucks that would require???
- dheera 6y agoI'm actually in support of GDPR not being a thing outside of EU companies. We shouldn't be setting a precedent for a world in which the EU writes laws for everyone that take effect for products developed outside their borders. To put it in context, just because EU users look at your site does not mean you need to follow EU laws any more than if China users look at your site or Iran users look at your site. You only need to follow your own jurisdiction's laws, and other countries can act to block your site if they don't like it. That said, I'm pro-privacy and think there should be better regulation about that in the US.
- throw14082020 6y agoWhat a joke: https://www.messenger.com/privacy https://www.messenger.com/privacy
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ourcat 6y agoLet's just hope fair taxation follows.
- young_unixer 6y agoI wonder where companies would draw the line of "This is too much, let's leave the EU market". A naïve answer would be: as long as there's a positive ROI. But I guess all the headaches must be taken into account.
- jacquesm 6y ago> "This is too much, let's leave the EU market". Please do.
- jart 6y agoIn the past Google has shut down individual services like Google News in countries like Spain due to zany laws.
- jnxx 6y agoWhere is the problem, Facebook leaving is a clear net plus for the EU. And the same goes for Amazon with its disregard for workers rights, health and safety standards, and failure to pay taxes.
- jacquesm 6y agoThis won't fly, for the simple reason that the ICO will have the same set of rules regarding data privacy that the EU has right now. They may change it, but that's the starting position. Facebook is not going to like the kind of fines that the ICO can throw at them.
- pavon 6y agoThe headline is somewhat misleading. The purpose of this move as the article explains is not to skirt the UK laws that have been "imported" from EU, but to avoid having to comply with both the UK-GDPR and EU-GDPR for UK citizens initially, and to make it easier to operate according to any bilateral treaties between the US and UK.
- jnxx 6y agoWhich will by the way make treaties in that area between UK and EU more difficult, as they will require some equal level of regulation. And that could bite because services are an important part of the UK economy and a part of them are digital services.
- M2Ys4U 6y agoThe ICO can fine, but almost certainly won't. It's a failed regulator.
- avianlyric 6y ago> It's a failed regulator. Not sure I would go this far, but I do agree with this > The ICO can fine, but almost certainly won't But only because one the U.K. leaves the EU, the ICO will struggle to actually enforce its fines when all of the companies involved are notional operating in the EU with little direct presence in the U.K.
- M2Ys4U 6y agoThey've been failing to even issue fines, let alone enforce them. Both for competence reasons (see also: the collapse of the AIQ enforcement, and the climb-downs in Mariot and BA cases) and for... I don't know why in the adtech case. The ICO has evidence of wide-scale criminal behaviour in the adtech industry. And yet they flat-out refuse to take enforcement action. They're even proud of the fact they're refusing to do their job - they put it in their annual report! And even in their non-data protection duties, they've all but given up enforcing the Freedom of Information Act. Statutory timelines are apparently now utterly meaningless. The ICO has even stopped publishing data on compliance levels. It looks like Denham wants to spend her time as Information Commissioner issuing tough-sounding press releases and threatening (but ultimately flawed) pre-enforcement notices and then using the publicity from those to become a Thought Leader in AI ethics.
- ryanSrich 6y agoI don’t understand this, but maybe I missed it in the article. How can FB avoid GDPR simply by moving offices? The rules apply to any business anywhere so long as they serve EU users. What am I not getting here?
- mellosouls 6y agoBrexit. British users are no longer subject to EU protection come January 1st and we can now be thrown to the wolves, courtesy the wisdom of our Brexiteer chums.
- goatinaboat 6y agoBritish users are no longer subject to EU protection GDPR is fully incorporated into British law so can you clarify what you mean by this? Do you mean that the EU regulator has more teeth than its UK equivalent? Both seem to be equally useless in fact.
- mellosouls 6y agoI mean that - whatever the legal details - Facebook clearly feels that it is now more useful to manage British data under a jurisdiction that was not an option before, an option that was held up as offering significantly less protection than under the EU. I don't buy the equivalence in toothlessness either - the EU seems to have a willingness to take on big tech overreach in a way UK Gov has neither the capability or willpower going by past performance.
- jnxx 6y ago> GDPR is fully incorporated into British law Well, you will see what happens to these laws. The whole Brexit enterprise is mainly an attempt to do maximum de-regulation. The discussions about food safety standards and health care service and its financiation are pretty good indicators what will follow in other areas.
- dboreham 6y agoBut now the site will carry a prop 65 warning...
- cratermoon 6y ago"Brexit will free the UK from foreign bureaucracies"
- hobozilla 6y agoWhat is that quote from?
- sleavey 6y agoNot OP, but that is either a direct phrase or a paraphrase of a very frequently spouted justification for Brexit: so-called sovereignty.
- cratermoon 6y agoIt's a paraphrase.
- Technically 6y agoNot much point in lionizing VC culture if y'all keep workin there
- dharma1 6y agoHow can they do this without repermissioning current UK users?
- dpwm 6y agoGoogle did something similar with a targeted terms of service update – I believe it was agree or close your account. I suspect that this transfer is going to be consent-based to avoid non-compliance in the handful of cases cases where they have inaccurate data regarding location.
- mnw21cam 6y agoI never agreed. Google just stopped asking after a while. I think I could refer Google to the data protection office, but the chances that they'll actually do anything about it are slim to zero.
- remus 6y agoTypically there's a clause along the lines of "You have 30/60/90 days to explicitly agree to the new terms. If you continue to use the service after this time you are implicitly agreeing to the new terms."
- jnxx 6y agoI would doubt whether such a clause would stand in court. Also, agreement (which is only one of the principles which make data processing legal, but I think it is the only one which covers what Google does, using the data for advertising which is not related to the direct service) is voluntarily, that means one cannot be forced to agree by otherwise withholding the service. Of course the latter point is not fully enforced for now but the EU is set to enforce it over time.
- sbarre 6y agoQuestion that perhaps someone can answer: Can the company simply cut you off then? You have no _right_ to the service, so if you choose not to agree, they can't force you to agree, but are they required to continue offering you the service?
- mjgs 6y agoSort of related, does anyone know if all the consent form popups will stop once the UK leaves the EU?
- asplake 6y agoHope so. In general I’m a fan of GDPR but I’d be glad to see this one go
- remus 6y agoFor what it's worth those cookie popups are actually from the EU e-privacy directive (which is implemented as PECR in the UK), so they aren't because of GDPR.
- mjgs 6y agoI don’t know, seems to me that most of the sites I see them in are US sites that say they have to get consent because of GDPR. When you browse from outside the UK, the sites don’t have the consent forms.
- remus 6y ago> I don’t know, seems to me that most of the sites I see them in are US sites that say they have to get consent because of GDPR. If they're asking about cookies for GDPR then that's a mistake on the part of those sites. You can read about the details of PECR here https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-pecr/what-are-pecr/ https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-pecr/what-are-... Of course under GDPR they may need to get permission for other forms of data processing (signing you up to a marketing mailing list, for example), but the rash of cookie permissions banners are because of PECR and similar legislation in other EU countries.
- mjgs 6y agoSo the only way to not have consent forms is to browse from outside the UK & EU? It’s getting more and more difficult to have a good experience browsing the web. That worries me.
- antpls 6y ago> Facebook Inc will shift all its users in the United Kingdom into user agreements with the corporate headquarters in California FB surely has a physical office in London, why not make that office the new UK headquarter, and move UK users under, well... UK terms?
- sbarre 6y agoBecause moving them under California terms is better for Facebook? If there's no legal requirement for them to operate under UK terms - especially if those are worse than California - why would they?
- thu2111 6y agoComplexity? All these different terms eventually turn into lines of code. If they aren't that different or nobody cares (which they don't, look at how many USA-only services are used by Brits) then it doesn't really make sense to add extra complexity for no reason.
- peter_d_sherman 6y agoI wonder if there would be a market for a company that: A) Has offices in different locations in the world; and B) Sells, as a service, to other companies, the ability to "off-load" their users, user management, and user agreements -- to other countries and jurisdictions. Yes, there are all kinds of problems with this idea(!), and yes, it would require tons and tons of Lawyers, both foreign and domestic, and that's if it could be done at all (is it moral/ethical/legal/legitimate/lawful at all levels?) -- but these issues temporarily excluded for the purposes of philosophical discussion, as someone who is interested in business and producing services for other businesses (AKA, value for business customers), I have to wonder if there's a market there... ? I of course, would lack the resources (much less the desire!) to attempt to capture that market, but nonetheless, I have to wonder if there's a market there... ?
- bserge 6y agoI've been wondering the same haha. Seems like Russia and other ex-USSR countries would be good places to set up (close to EU, pretty open Internet and business laws, at least compared to China)...
- doggydogs94 6y agoFacebook just opted for the easiest solution.
- dpumpshitlord 6y agoIf you hate this company as much a I do, DM me