? 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.
You are one of those that falls for the semantic trick of "we don't sell your data" [0].
A private foreign company isn't more powerful than the EU, there is no irony that a regulatory and investigative body wants private information concerning an investigation from a company operating under its jurisdiction. And a company that has a track record of strong-arming regulations and governments.
I'm aware of how my data is being used by Facebook, and am generally unconcerned by it, as are most people.
Conversely, it would seem you're falling for the completely false claim made in the NY Times that somehow, placing ads on FB is somehow tantamount to 'buying customer data'. The article is making a bizarrely stupid claim.
"I am shocked that anyone continues to believe this claim. Each time you click on a Facebook ad, Facebook sells data on you to that advertiser. This is such a basic property of online targeted advertising that it would be impossible to avoid, even if Facebook somehow wanted to."
It's basically lying to suggest that someone placing ads on a network is remotely similar to, for example, Facebook literally selling user data directly to advertisers or anyone else.
You, I, everyone, we see the ads on Facebook, the means by which those ads are purchased is available for anyone to see and it's really not that big a deal. It's mostly demographics, location, and some degree of interest that usually isn't correct in the first place.
"A private foreign company isn't more powerful than the EU"
The EU and FB are bound by law, and it seems clear the EU is breaking it by making broad search and seizure during some kind of investigative discovery, and the EU courts will have to rule on it.
I don't understand how we can have such crazy double standards. If it's against the law, and there is evidence somewhere that I broke it, why is it outside the mandate and allowance of government to enforce its access to it? Your examples are a bit contrived and evokes "incriminate myself" ideas that complicate it a bit. But what if it's more obvious? An email or private text message that quite explicitly says "yeah, I stashed the murder weapon in location xyz". We've all agreed that murder is illegal, currently using certain substances is illegal, fraud is illegal, etc. So why the double standard under the guise of "right to privacy"?
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.
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.
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.
500 Million Europeans are not stupid, and they know what is going on: they see the ads right in front of them and are aware there is some degree of targeting going on.
The mechanism of this targeting is not some complicated dark secret - it's literally available to 7 billion people to see any time. It's right there: location, demographic and basic interest targeting. Data is not being sold to anyone, and advertisers can place ads based on a few simple things. There's nothing remotely nefarious.
People around the world 100% make the choice to use Facebook with this understanding, it's literally free, and there is no compulsion to use it.
If you use Facebook, then you have made the choice, nobody is putting words in your mouth, your assertion is a function of your actions, not my words.
If Facebook was leaking data, selling data etc. there would be a problem. But they aren't, so there isn't.
I'm saying that you are wrong given that I worked with data privacy advocacy groups in 3 countries in Europe where one of the researches was exactly to gauge how much the average internet user knows about how their data is collected, used and cross-referenced between multiple parties.
You are building the strawman that because people know about data collection they aren't stupid, I never said they are stupid, I'm saying that the way this data is collected and used is so obfuscated from the general public that it's akin to exploiting a whole populace ignorance as a business model.
> People around the world 100% make the choice to use Facebook with this understanding, it's literally free, and there is no compulsion to use it.
This is patently false, not sure if you like hyperboles or if you are just that ignorant about the knowledge of the rest of the people in the world that doesn't live on Hacker News and breath tech...
Sure, but I am not talking about their users but the company itself. If it doesn't want to follow EU law while doing business in the EU, I think they should not business here...
Similarly, to how some news sites in the US block EU ip address so they don't need to comply with GDPR.
I am quite happy that EU tries to protect the privacy of its citizens. I would be delighted if the US and other countries would follow suit.
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.