Facebook isn't evil. Perhaps they're a bit naïve, thinking that storing all this data is ok, but it might not be. Whenever Max' story comes up, someone usually

Facebook isn't evil. Perhaps they're a bit naïve, thinking that storing all this data is ok, but it might not be. Whenever Max' story comes up, someone usually comments that using Facebook is completely voluntarily, and people should just not use it if it bothers them what kind of data Facebook collects and how it uses them. Whether or not it's voluntary is completely besides the point here. First of all, as gerggerg mentioned in a comment here, it's not voluntary if you don't know about it (i.e. what data Facebook collects and what they do with it). Second, if a company provides me with a service, I expect them to do it in accordance with the law. So, when Facebook provides us with their services, I really don't see why I shouldn't be able to request the information that Max has requested from them. It is actually my right to use their service, and then ask them to provide me with the data they have stored about me. Of course, Facebook will also expect to run their service in accordance with the law, and be ready to hand over data when it's requested. It's not like this is something we Europeans suddenly pulled out of a hat, and I'm sure Facebook knew about it. Any company that decides to open offices in another country will of course take time to learn about laws that affect their business. We've had laws for this for a while, actually, and we learn about how we can request our personal data from companies in school (at least I did). But don't feel bad for the companies that have to comply to this law - it's not like all they do is sit around providing data to people requesting it. Most people don't actually request it!