6 ms·

Germans are NOT privacy conscious or cautious - see SCHUFA, Rundfunkbeitrag debt collection, countless Inkasso, Payback, applying for apartment rental, invasive

Germans are NOT privacy conscious or cautious - see SCHUFA, Rundfunkbeitrag debt collection, countless Inkasso, Payback, applying for apartment rental, invasive copyright predators. They simply hate anything which smells internet. Germans hate the internet.

zelphirkalt 5y ago
You are both kind of right. I would say that we Germans like our privacy perhaps more than some others, but that we do have many blind spots and are generally not well educated about the issues with Facebook and similar. There is also a difference between the uninformed young user (useds) and the people, who have been around long enough and have an attention span long enough to recognize the patterns.
mrtksn 5y ago
When I was traveling across Europe, I had hard time taking photos of regular houses that I liked. People will get out and ask why I was photographing. Maybe it is the way it is because Germans like it that way, not everyone needs to have photo of their house. Not necessarily hating the internet. Also, I hated the fact that Germany did not have Street View, used it extensively at other places to pick neighbourhoods to go or not to go. When I asked people I met how comes you don’t have Street View here, they all said that they liked their privacy and it has to do with the times when the government was watching everyone, so they are more cautious about it.
- herbst 5y ago
  That's just what they tend to think. From a closer outside view Germans are not too picky with their data. As someone mentioned above, to many private companies who are allowed to access, process and use your data.
- hnbad 5y ago
  Germans say they like their privacy. Germans also use WhatsApp, Facebook, Google Chrome and Windows. Germans may be more likely than Americans to think of "privacy" as something they want to be protected, but that doesn't at all translate to a cultural understanding of data protection. We don't want to be "spied on" but that only translates into an expectation of legislature, not into much real activism. There was a short-lived popular support of the Pirate Party around free culture, privacy and transparency but as someone involved at the time I have to confess for most people this was mostly fueled by fears of losing the ability to listen to music and watch videos prior to the rise of Netflix and music streaming services. There's an old cultural cliché of Germany being personified by a tired man with a nightcap as a joke about Germans being politically unmotivated but regardless of why that continues to be the case, it still very much describes how it feels if you try to motivate Germans about any issue beyond a few performative protests.
gmueckl 5y ago
I'd say that Germans are repeatedly goated into hating or fearing one thing or another because media randomly pick up talking points from activists and then try to outdo each other by running that story to death while stirring up a public outcry. Google Street View was just unlucky enough to fall victim to one of these public bashing cycles.
- kuschku 5y ago
  Google Street View would've been illegal anyway. It's legal to take pictures of public spaces, but only if taken from the height of the average human. Street View had cameras that were quite a bit taller and could see over fences and hedges.
  - gmueckl 5y ago
    Google Street View is actually legal in Germany. The European Court of Human Rights has finally ruled that taking pictures of houses does not violate any personal rights. Faces and car license plates are blurred, so these don't pose any issues either.
    - kuschku 5y ago
      The court ruling only applies if the pictures are taken at eye level, which is why older street view images can't be accessed (the first time they rolled it out, they used cameras at a height of over 3m). This was an expected judgement all the time. The height restriction is as people have a reasonable expectation of privacy behind their hedges or fences in their own backyard.

zelphirkalt 5y ago

You are both kind of right. I would say that we Germans like our privacy perhaps more than some others, but that we do have many blind spots and are generally not well educated about the issues with Facebook and similar. There is also a difference between the uninformed young user (useds) and the people, who have been around long enough and have an attention span long enough to recognize the patterns.

mrtksn 5y ago

When I was traveling across Europe, I had hard time taking photos of regular houses that I liked. People will get out and ask why I was photographing. Maybe it is the way it is because Germans like it that way, not everyone needs to have photo of their house. Not necessarily hating the internet. Also, I hated the fact that Germany did not have Street View, used it extensively at other places to pick neighbourhoods to go or not to go. When I asked people I met how comes you don’t have Street View here, they all said that they liked their privacy and it has to do with the times when the government was watching everyone, so they are more cautious about it.

herbst 5y ago
That's just what they tend to think. From a closer outside view Germans are not too picky with their data. As someone mentioned above, to many private companies who are allowed to access, process and use your data.
hnbad 5y ago
Germans say they like their privacy. Germans also use WhatsApp, Facebook, Google Chrome and Windows. Germans may be more likely than Americans to think of "privacy" as something they want to be protected, but that doesn't at all translate to a cultural understanding of data protection. We don't want to be "spied on" but that only translates into an expectation of legislature, not into much real activism. There was a short-lived popular support of the Pirate Party around free culture, privacy and transparency but as someone involved at the time I have to confess for most people this was mostly fueled by fears of losing the ability to listen to music and watch videos prior to the rise of Netflix and music streaming services. There's an old cultural cliché of Germany being personified by a tired man with a nightcap as a joke about Germans being politically unmotivated but regardless of why that continues to be the case, it still very much describes how it feels if you try to motivate Germans about any issue beyond a few performative protests.

gmueckl 5y ago

I'd say that Germans are repeatedly goated into hating or fearing one thing or another because media randomly pick up talking points from activists and then try to outdo each other by running that story to death while stirring up a public outcry. Google Street View was just unlucky enough to fall victim to one of these public bashing cycles.

kuschku 5y ago
Google Street View would've been illegal anyway. It's legal to take pictures of public spaces, but only if taken from the height of the average human. Street View had cameras that were quite a bit taller and could see over fences and hedges.
- gmueckl 5y ago
  Google Street View is actually legal in Germany. The European Court of Human Rights has finally ruled that taking pictures of houses does not violate any personal rights. Faces and car license plates are blurred, so these don't pose any issues either.
  - kuschku 5y ago
    The court ruling only applies if the pictures are taken at eye level, which is why older street view images can't be accessed (the first time they rolled it out, they used cameras at a height of over 3m). This was an expected judgement all the time. The height restriction is as people have a reasonable expectation of privacy behind their hedges or fences in their own backyard.