[HN Gopher] Germany bans Facebook from handling WhatsApp data ov...
___________________________________________________________________
Germany bans Facebook from handling WhatsApp data over privacy
concerns
Author : giuliomagnifico
Score : 657 points
Date : 2021-05-11 18:00 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.euronews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.euronews.com)
| the-dude wrote:
| IIRC this was exactly the policy the EU required for allowing the
| acquisition in the first place.
| wnkrshm wrote:
| Facebook even said it wasn't possible IIRC.
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| your comment is very relevant, most other comments focus on
| existing regulations like GDPR. But IIRC the Whatsapp takeover
| was only granted from EU regulatory offices with the
| requirement that Facebook would not join the Whatsapp users
| data into their systems [0]
|
| [0]: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/facebook-whatsapp-merger-
| eur...
| annadane wrote:
| Right? And then they went ahead and did it anyway
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| Unless we have German police personally looking over shoulders
| wherever WhatsApps data is handled, i don't see how this exchange
| of information can be prevented.
| fishmaster wrote:
| I think it's more that they can be fined heavily should it ever
| be found out.
| ohthehugemanate wrote:
| This works in WA's favor in some contexts. I have a fresh wave of
| friends who tell me I should reinstall WA, because they "don't do
| data sharing in Germany".
|
| I note that their terms still say that they do share data; they
| just have a PR line outside the terms that says they'll do it as
| soon as they "reach an agreement" with regulators.
|
| I further note that their entire business model for WA depends on
| sharing data for advertising. Trusting them on their PR agent's
| word not to share data is the fox guarding the hen house.
| phito wrote:
| Why do people insist so much about using Facebook's apps? This
| reads just like an addict giving bad excuses for their
| relapse...
| mds101 wrote:
| The problem is Whatsapp has strong network effects unlike
| Facebook itself. Most people would be able to quit Facebook
| and it wouldn't make much of a difference to their lives,
| whereas cutting off Whatsapp would mean a daily inconvenience
| when you want to talk to the people closest to you.
| midasz wrote:
| > would mean a daily inconvenience when you want to talk to
| the people closest to you
|
| I did exactly that and it wasn't hard at all. I still have
| a phone number which they can call or text. I let them know
| the alternatives I was reachable on, and they installed
| them. My family group chat is now on Telegram, my wife who
| still uses whatsapp says the WA family chat is basically
| dead.
|
| Even when I was in contact with a recruiter for the job I'm
| currently in it wasn't that hard. She said I'll 'App you'
| which means to send a message via WA. I quickly said
| something like ah sorry I'm not on WA but you can Telegram
| or just text me instead. And you know what she said? Ok.
| And then we texted.
|
| If it's really that big of an inconvenience for those
| closest to you, you have to wonder how close they really
| are.
| roelschroeven wrote:
| > My family group chat is now on Telegram
|
| Good for you, and your family, but that's simply not
| possible in lots of situations. My father and I tried to
| convert our family chat to Signal. Didn't work. I have no
| way to convince my coworkers to switch away from
| Whatsapp: they simply don't see privacy issues in the
| same light as I do.
|
| It's unfortunate, but at least for the time being it's
| simply not happening.
| midasz wrote:
| > My father and I tried to convert our family chat to
| Signal. Didn't work.
|
| Oh damn, did they just continue the whatsapp chat without
| you two in it?
|
| > convince my coworkers to switch away from Whatsapp
|
| You don't have to convince them to switch away from WA.
| You personally just need to switch away from WA. The
| reason it worked in my case is because I just simply
| stated I wasn't going to use it anymore and that they
| could reach me in different ways. The value is in the
| network effect, at the start they used Telegram just for
| me. But since they already had Telegram open for the
| group chat, they might as well use it for PM's to each
| other.
|
| > at least for the time being it's simply not happening
|
| There's really nothing that will change though. WA will
| keep working, WA will keep becoming more shit, and 99% of
| people will still not care as long as it works. The only
| difference is the people that you can reach through the
| medium.
| jonp888 wrote:
| > If it's really that big of an inconvenience for those
| closest to you, you have to wonder how close they really
| are.
|
| You are in an incredibly fortunate position if you only
| ever have to communicate with people or groups of people
| who find you so significant they will change things to
| ensure they can reach you.
|
| I am involved in a couple of volunteer groups with about
| 50 members. Everything is planned and discussed in
| WhatsApp groups. I am a junior member with no special
| value to the group and if I declined to participate via
| WA I would just be ignored. I.E. If I stopped using
| WhatsApp I would no longer have any hobbies. Great
| result.
|
| Likewise where I live there is a massive housing
| shortage, 100 applicants for a flat is not unusual. If
| the agent wanted to use WhatsApp and I refused, he would
| just ignore me.
| wraptile wrote:
| That's the question that has been bugging me forever and the
| only answer is network effect.
|
| Facebook apps _suck_.
|
| Prime example I like to use is Facebook groups - the most
| popular forums in the world right now and in terms of UX it
| could be outdone by a forum from 2004: there's no sorting, no
| indexing, search is non-functional, no proper formatting, no
| proper moderation tools, no sorting of filterting or
| categories - it's just insane!
|
| Nothing facebook touches is designed with UX in mind and
| that's by design. That goes for majority of free user
| services that are powered by selling user data unfortunately.
| leodriesch wrote:
| IDK if you are just talking about Facebook apps themselves,
| but I would say that WhatsApp and Instagram are very well
| written apps in terms of UX. Some of the best apps on my
| iPhone I would argue.
| oblio wrote:
| Facebook doesn't really want you searching or sorting.
| Facebook wants you asking again, creating new pages all the
| time, etc.
|
| Their incentives are misaligned.
| phito wrote:
| Oh my god yes, Facebook groups do suck. I've seen so much
| tension in groups related to my hobby because beginners
| tend to ask the same questions over and over again which is
| fine, but since all the posts are put together in the same
| feed instead of having categories, the more experienced
| hobbysts are getting sick of seeing these kind of posts and
| lash it out on the beginners.
|
| There's constant drama about this, the blame is always put
| on other people and never on the fact that they use a
| shitty platform.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| I don't use Facebook itself but WhatsApp is required software
| for everyone in my country. _Everybody_ uses it and there 's
| just no way to communicate efficiently with anyone without
| it. People buy phones just to use WhatsApp.
| jokoon wrote:
| Isn't that like a huge news? By reading the article it seems like
| it's not such a big deal...
|
| On the other hand, facebook seems like it's deader than dead,
| it's just the agglomeration of whatsapp, instagram and occulus
| now.
|
| I'm curious if the Trump election problem is one the reason why
| facebook is dying.
| eqvinox wrote:
| The aspect I find most interesting and internationally relevant
| is that as these local rulings proliferate, they kinda make it
| visible to what degree companies finance their operations by
| selling user data. The more the business model relies on this,
| the more likely companies are to get hit with a ruling like this
| -- and it's not just the ruling that's interesting, but also what
| Facebook's reaction will be. If they stop offering or reduce
| WhatsApp services in Germany (or India), that's a great indicator
| that the service isn't profitable without the sale (or other
| commercial exploitation, Facebook is an ad company after all) of
| large amounts of user data.
| mbilal wrote:
| The real problem is that its never enough for these companies.
| Charge me some monthly fee for whatsapp and I'll pay, but no,
| that's not enough for them.
| herbst wrote:
| You say that. But back when WhatsApp actually was a paid app
| nobody bothered paying.
| beefield wrote:
| That is one of the regulations that should be applied to
| adtech companies: Adtech companies should be required to
| offer a paid version of all their products with a price that
| covers the costs of producing the service (including a decent
| profit margin but not including tracking/adtech components of
| the free version) but with strong guarantees that customers
| [1] opting to pay are not tracked, not shown ads and their
| data is in no other way monetized or sold to third parties.
|
| [1] as opposed to products...
| rodgerd wrote:
| I mean that was literally their business model until Facebook
| purchased them. It was a successful stand-alone company!
|
| And now look at it. The bad drives out the good.
| e-clinton wrote:
| What does "successful" mean to you? Are you claiming they
| were profitable? Of so, what's the source?
| crossroadsguy wrote:
| I don't think you can "talk to" or warn companies like
| Facebook. You just shut them down bring them to their knees.
| You've to do to them what Apple App Store is doing to them.
|
| I think all these warnings and then those rare pocket change
| fines are nothing but slaps on the wrists that Facebooks of the
| world might be allocating in their annual expenses predictably.
|
| But convenience comes in the way and Facebook knows it.
|
| As for India, Facebook will be fine as long as it shares data
| with the Govt. Hell, it might even become official
| communication app in India endorsed by no less than the
| glorious PM while hugging tightly his "dear friend Mark" on
| stage.
| pmiller2 wrote:
| That's the thing that really gets me. GDPR fines can be
| anywhere from 2-4% of annual revenue (not profit, _revenue_
| ), yet none have even come close. I guarantee you if you took
| 4% of Facebook's gross revenue right off the top, they'd
| notice.
|
| For 2020, their gross revenue was just shy of $86B, so, 2-4%
| of that would be about $1.7-3.4B. Considering that 2020
| EBITDA was $39.5B, that would represent 4-8% of their
| profits.
|
| Tell me that's not going to affect the stock price. Because
| that's what you need to do to actually get these companies to
| do something is materially affect their stock price and piss
| off the shareholders.
| viraptor wrote:
| Almost no organisation / judge / regulator / ... will hit
| someone with the full fine immediately. This is an
| incentive to comply not an attempt at killing the company.
| It seems to work since I haven't heard of gdpr ruling being
| repeated for the same offence so far. I expect the fine
| would just go up.
| pmiller2 wrote:
| Taking away a few percent of a company's profit, while
| still leaving a quite substantial profit margin is not
| "killing the company." There needs to be some teeth
| behind these fines to make companies respect them. You
| may not have heard of repeat fines for the same offense,
| but all that shows is that they fix things after they're
| pointed out. Wouldn't it be better if they thought about
| how they're handling peoples' data _before_ they got
| caught doing it wrong?
|
| Somebody needs to be made an example of, and a company
| like Facebook that not only can absorb the hit but is not
| well known for respecting peoples' privacy is a great
| target, IMO.
| throw14082020 wrote:
| If the fine was $1.7-3.4B, you can expect facebook to spend
| $1.6999-3.3999B on undoing that (or have already spent
| preventing that, e.g. front pages on newspapers for Apple's
| ATT feature in iOS 14.5). Looking at a forces perspective,
| facebook has more weight/ incentive behind it because they
| stand to lose a lot of money, Zuckerberg will be managing
| the situation. Governments works with none of these
| pressures or systems. Yesterday, I got back a complaint I
| submitted to the ICO (information commissioners office) in
| February 2021, asking for more information/ data.
| Responding to my complaint in that quality should've only
| taken less than 5 minutes.
| vidarh wrote:
| The courts are not going to push up towards the upper limit
| of that unless someone does something extremely shockingly
| bad, because otherwise they have no room for a graduated
| response if something worse comes along.
|
| It'll take time - if politicians see the fines that get
| applied are too modest, hopefully there will be steps taken
| to firm up the criteria or increase the amounts.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Some weeks ago, I saw a comment on HN[0] that made me
| think. It presented an argument for current level of fines
| for all kinds of white-collar mischief being sufficient.
| The reasoning as I remember it was along the lines of:
|
| - The fines are usually attached to an order to stop the
| activity in question. This leads to the misbehavior being
| corrected, because a company continuing their practice
| against the order will be committing much serious offense.
|
| - Such "slap in the wrist" fine clearly establishes a
| particular practice to be illegal, which influences
| decision making process in other companies. When
| considering whether to walk a legal tightrope, there's a
| world of difference between theoretical liability and a
| clear example of someone else landing in hot water for
| doing that same thing.
|
| Put like that, it sounds reasonable to me if fines start at
| a low level (regardless of the public's opinion of the
| offender).
|
| I'm posting it here not because I agree[1], but in hopes
| that someone can point to evidence for or against this
| approach working. Do companies continue to do the things
| they were fined for in the jurisdictions they were fined
| for? Are other companies opting to engage in a behavior
| _after_ someone else in the same jurisdiction was fined for
| it?
|
| --
|
| [0] - Can't find it now :(.
|
| [1] - I have no opinion just yet. I thought about it a
| little, and I realized that from game theory point of view,
| you'd expect a company threatened with the 2-4% annual
| revenue level fine to put up an expensive fight, not to
| protect the behavior in question, but to contest the fine
| itself. This adds another point in favor of this view.
| usrusr wrote:
| Sounds a lot like the saying that it's easy to keep
| honest people honest. But that's about _keeping_ people
| to rules that, for all practical concerns, have been
| there forever. Regulation is often dealing with quite the
| opposite. When you decide one day that it 's not ok
| anymore for a chemicals plant to just dump spent reagents
| in the river it's about changing behavior, not about
| preventing bad habits to form. That makes it much harder.
|
| Another question is how closely the behavior in question
| is related to the income streams: the chemical plant
| won't sell less if they avoid unprocessed dumping.
| Chances are they can even convert part of their waste
| into sellable side-products. And if a hotel chain had a
| little side income from selling Wifi communication
| metadata to ad networks they could stop doing so any time
| without changing the tiniest thing in their core business
| besides some minor numbers in the balance sheet. But
| Facebook doesn't have any business outside of ad
| targeting and telling them to stop some forms of data
| collection almost seems like an attempt at winning over
| Henry Morgan to peaceful cargo transport.
| llampx wrote:
| Consider the use of fines in changing private people's
| behavior. Get a $5 fine for parking in a fire lane?
| You're probably not going to think twice about it. Get a
| $500 fine? Or they take a % of your income? You will
| think hard before parking where you're not supposed to.
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| I think parent's point was: a $5 fine for the first time
| anyone ever parks in a fire lane would be reasonable (not
| the first ever parking ticket, but the first of that
| particular type). It may have been obvious already that
| it's wrong, but now it's been tested in the courts the
| precendent is much stronger. So long as fines for things
| violating obvious legal precendent are closer to that
| $500 mark then that would be enough to stop further
| offenses (by original party and others).
|
| Like the parent comment, I'm not saying I agree or that
| this represents the actual situation here.
| buran77 wrote:
| > Put like that, it sounds reasonable to me if fines
| start at a low level (regardless of the public's opinion
| of the offender).
|
| The real reason fines are never crippling is because they
| would not be paid, there would be endless back and forth
| in courts for what could be decades, with the authorities
| always being less prepared and less funded for such a
| battle. So they take what they can get away with. Then
| there's the aspect of giving a large fine and hitting
| vital interests of a major company from another
| country... You're inviting some form of nation level
| retaliation sooner or later.
|
| All the calculated proceeds resulting from an illegal
| activity should be clawed back if this is to ever solve
| anything. Keep in mind that we're not talking about
| actions that are suddenly declared illegal, we're talking
| about actions that were illegal _all along_ and the
| company was officially found guilty of that. Not
| guaranteeing an overall loss for the company if they 're
| caught means the worst that can happen is they lose
| _some_ of the profit. This is literally just "the cost
| of doing business" and proliferates.
| Aeolun wrote:
| > The real reason fines are never crippling is because
| they would not be paid
|
| And then Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram cease to be a
| thing in Germany.
|
| At least, that would be nice, but the politicians that
| would impose that are probably too attached to their
| instagram dog photos.
| corty wrote:
| > Such "slap in the wrist" fine clearly establishes a
| particular practice to be illegal, which influences
| decision making process in other companies.
|
| > Put like that, it sounds reasonable to me if fines
| start at a low level
|
| This is fine if you want a low level of compliance from
| businesses. I.e. if you want them to ask for forgiveness
| later and preferably not get caught. Because slap-on-the-
| wrist fines are not something that will ever appear in a
| risk calculation in any meaningful amount, illegal
| behaviour will be tolerated within the company, and only
| corrected upon getting caught once. Because only the
| subsequent fine might hurt. Meaning that you entice all
| your companies in covert illegal behaviour.
|
| If, on the other hand, the first fine really hurts, you
| get deterrence. Meaning that catching a fine is seen as a
| business risk, and the company will try to avoid getting
| fined in proportion to the amount. Behaviour will be more
| legal-by-default and seeking permission.
|
| Which one is desired is a matter of public policy, and it
| isn't binary in the amount and may be different for
| different laws and behaviours. I am personally preferring
| the latter.
| samizdis wrote:
| > [0] - Can't find it now :(.
|
| Was it this comment?
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26832852
| concerned_user wrote:
| Are you sure you can apply it like that? My understanding
| is that there is no Facebook Global that you can fine
| citing these revenues but some local braanch Facebook
| CountryName will get the fine with only local revenue.
| Therefore expecting fines of 1.7-3.4B is somewhat
| unrealistic I beleive.
| pmiller2 wrote:
| I'm sure they report their revenue like that, so, yeah,
| probably?
| Siira wrote:
| > You've to do to them what Apple App Store is doing to them.
|
| What them? The Apple/Google duopoly is fucking everybody.
| There was a recent post on HN about Panic shutting down its
| iOS text editor because of AppStore restrictions.
|
| The ad move by Apple is the ultimate example; They shut down
| third-party tracking, while their own tracking machine
| continues uninterrupted. Do you think if China requested your
| data from Apple, they wouldn't give in silently? Dream on.
| Spivak wrote:
| I mean I would actually expect if any government where
| Apple does significant business demanded my user data they
| would give it silently. Like we're talking about entities
| whose authority is ultimately backed by violence. Nobody
| should be obligated to put themselves in harms way for
| anyone else. It is of course very noble if they do but not
| something that can be expected.
| Siira wrote:
| They might decide ridiculing the incompetent government
| is worth the PR, e.g., their shows with the US gov. Of
| course, you're correct that as soon as those govs show
| some teeth, Apple would change course very fast.
|
| Ultimately, if the biggest monopolies of violence can get
| your data by just requesting it, you won't gain much from
| having "privacy." It's better to focus on economics, and
| use custom hardware and software if you want privacy.
| jp555 wrote:
| How does Facebook "sell user data"?
|
| When I buy ads on Facebook I cannot access any user's data.
|
| Do they have another product offering where I can buy user
| data? I dont see anything like that.
| imchillyb wrote:
| > How does Facebook "sell user data"? @jp555
|
| https://www.androidauthority.com/signal-ads-banned-
| facebook-...
|
| That article showcases what Signal was trying to show
| Facebook's users.
|
| The data accumulated cannot be purchased, but the power of
| that harvested data certainly can be.
| jp555 wrote:
| I might gave this wrong, but only the users saw their own
| data in the ads they were served. Signal can choose lots of
| parameters for who should see their ads, but they dont get
| to see who those people are.
| corty wrote:
| Look for Cambridge Analytica.
|
| If you think the behavior ended with the scandal, I've got
| the Golden Gate Bridge and the Eiffel Tower to sell you, two
| for one :)
| ParanoidShroom wrote:
| But that was all scraped, was there a financial
| transaction? Yes please link some other scandals, i'd want
| to get into it more, thanks
| corty wrote:
| In the Cambridge Analytica scandal, there was no direct
| payment to Facebook, just to an intermediary.
|
| Without an obvious payment, but maybe with mutual
| consideration:
| https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46618582 https://www.
| theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/12/faceb...
| germanier wrote:
| In this case, they plan to transfer user data into another
| division of their company. They have bought WhatsApp LLC,
| with cash and shares in hand, and got (among other things)
| user data in return. This is a pretty clear case of selling
| user data of such a company, isn't it? (Note that GP never
| claimed that Facebook itself sold any data just that they
| exploit data commercially - they have given third parties
| extensive access to user data in the past though)
|
| Anyway, these discussions on the technicality of the term
| "selling data" vs "selling access to users using data" is
| just means to deflect from the real problem. It doesn't get
| away by rephrasing.
| trutannus wrote:
| You don't call up Facebook and ask for a few TB of data. You
| use ad targeting services which are essentially an
| abstraction on top of a personal data aggregation and
| analysis system.
| jp555 wrote:
| Right, Facebook's ability to make money comes from how well
| it keeps user data secret, so it can sell abstracted access
| to advertisers.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| Reducing service can also be a strong-armed way to force
| customers to advocate for them.
|
| "Want to keep talking to grandma? Better tell your government
| to leave us alone"
| leipert wrote:
| I am actually using this argument in the inverse: "hey
| grandma, do you still wanna see baby pictures, please install
| <other-messenger>"
| noja wrote:
| Is Grandma happy that none of the pictures are saved to her
| camera roll? This seems to be a gaping lack of a feature
| amongst people I know.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _Is Grandma happy that none of the pictures are saved
| to her camera roll?_
|
| Why would they be? If I mail you a bunch of pictures in
| an envelope, they don't magically convert to negatives
| and transfer themselves to the roll of film inside your
| analog camera.
|
| <rant>
|
| Snark aside, "camera roll" must be one of the most
| confusing attempts at "user-friendly" abstractions I've
| seen in widely-deployed software, especially with so many
| apps shipping their own implementations (in addition to
| the OS/camera gallery), some of which mix together some
| combination of pictures downloaded to (but not taken by)
| the phone, pictures existing only in the cloud, pictures
| existing only in _a different app 's_ cloud...
|
| There's skeuomorphism, and there's building a bad
| abstraction on top of a limitation of ancient tech,
| seemingly forgetting the ~10+ year period between analog
| cameras and smartphones with good imaging sensors, where
| everyone got used to digital cameras shooting photos to a
| "memory card". My non-tech-savvy relatives are definitely
| _more_ confused about "camera rolls" in their phones
| than they were about managing JPGs on SD cards using
| standard desktop OS filesystem tools.
|
| Hell, number one support request I get from family these
| days is, "How do I copy ${these photos from a "camera
| roll" of some app} to ${OS gallery app} and to ${this USB
| stick}? We want to show all photos of ${grandchild} to
| ${neighbor} without Internet. And we want to have them in
| ${a folder on a PC} so it's safe, and we can view it on a
| large screen." The process isn't _that_ involved, just
| confusing, and somewhat different for every other app. It
| 's like vendors _really_ don 't want people to store
| their photos as files anymore :).
|
| </rant>
| d110af5ccf wrote:
| > It's like vendors really don't want people to store
| their photos as files anymore
|
| In case you haven't noticed, there seems to be an active
| effort to do away with the notion of files. Because
| making things _more_ abstract is supposed to reduce
| confusion somehow.
| the-dude wrote:
| Dude, files are hard.
| oooooooooooow wrote:
| Files are OPEN.
|
| You can do whatever you want with a bunch of bits and a
| spec that tells you what they mean. Even utilize
| different software/hardware to consume and manipulate
| them, which is the last thing your software/hardware
| vendor wants you to do.
|
| Did anyone really think doing away with files ever had
| anything to do with simplicity? Another magical thing you
| can do with a bunch of bits is build abstractions over
| them to simplify their manipulations as much as you want.
| It's vendor lock-in and it's not only awful but evil too.
| the-dude wrote:
| You don't understand. Ordinary people don't understand
| what a file is, what it can do for them etc.
|
| Result is they can't find them, lose them, don't have
| backups etc. I have interacted with users who hadn't
| grasped before they could make folders themselves.
|
| Ask your mother or your sister.
| corty wrote:
| Some people are unable to refill the windshield wiper
| fluid of their car. Some people cannot reattach a button.
| I think we shouldn't continue to tolerate such
| incompetence from the general population, or at least
| charge them an arm and a leg as punishment.
|
| But unfortunately, vendors have caught up and noticed
| that "an arm and a leg" is lots of money, so if they
| could just make it a tiny bit harder...
| oooooooooooow wrote:
| The plan in motion is, in the name of "making reattaching
| a button simpler", prevent anyone able to reattach a
| button on their own from doing it, so the shirt
| manufacturer makes more bank.
|
| Me being able to freely manipulate my own data according
| to my capacity has NOTHING to do with providing
| uninterested/incapable people with tools that hide
| complexity.
| noja wrote:
| > Why would they be?
|
| Because they were saved to the central photo place with
| WhatsApp, and she likes seeing all of her photos there.
| rakoo wrote:
| My local equivalent to grandma doesn't know what a camera
| roll is. When she wants to see family pictures, she goes
| in the family conversation and scrolls through messages
| until she finds them.
|
| It might not be the "best" way but I'm not sure there is
| one. Instead of browsing content by type ("all photos")
| and scrolling until she finds what she wants, she browses
| by context ("all stuff involving family") and scrolls
| until she finds photos. She is not totally comfortable
| with the idea that a photo is a bunch of bytes that can
| be read from multiple places. She prefers going back to
| the place the content comes from, because that's just
| easier.
|
| Of course one way is better in some situations, and the
| other is better in others. But not putting photos in the
| camera roll has one advantage: it doesn't store them in a
| storage that's probably unencrypted and readable offline
| by someone with physical access
| Siira wrote:
| That's an anti-feature, unless you're only getting family
| photos. What people really need is cloud sync plus a good
| interface to browse and search photos.
| behnamoh wrote:
| If only grandma could use Signal, etc. The problem is that
| Telegram has by far the best UI and UX IMO, and yet we
| cannot trust it. Then there are applications which we could
| trust more (like Signal) but they are ridiculously hard to
| use and lack many features. Actually, I would say FB
| Messenger also sucks a lot and apparently FB does not care.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| not accurate.
|
| I was able to get grandma on Signal precisely because it
| was the little secret between us. She knew that a signal
| coming in was from me, and only me. I was using it to
| talk to her. And she thought it was cool that we talked
| via signal to her before any other family member caught
| on the signal craze.
|
| I was able to get my SO to use signal on the same
| principle. Pick the people in your life that care about
| you - and care back. You are available via signal, while
| you ingnore whatsapp et al. You answer right away on
| signal whereas on other stuff, you wait.
|
| Its funny how far along you can take a feature-lacking
| app provided its simple for others to use, and there is
| an emotional attachment in its use.
| jackson1way wrote:
| You could also customize the notification sound for
| incoming messages in whatsapp and mute (or just use a
| short plop sound for) anyone else for grandma. Now
| grandma can focus on learning to use only one app for all
| her grand children and will find all the pictures from
| all her relatives in one place and will more likely be
| able to even forward pictures to other people on her
| whatsapp. Assuming Grandmas in their 80s.
| feanaro wrote:
| But then grandma is using WhatsApp, which is what we're
| trying to avoid. The point is not that it's possible to
| make her use WhatsApp. The point is that it's possible to
| make her use a better alternative.
| pvorb wrote:
| But how is it better for Grandma? Does she really care on
| her own or did you talk to her until she accepted that
| she cannot receive messages from you unless she uses
| Signal?
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| I didnt have to spell out instructions.
|
| I just told her to dowload the app.
|
| At its core, signal is still a messenger app. Its not
| hard to use. I dont think you realize how powerful are
| simple things like "good morning" and "i love you" to
| your family and loved ones. Give a little of it, and see
| the results.
| bonoboTP wrote:
| She likely wouldn't know to care. But she most likely
| trusts the judgment of her grandson (mine does) in what's
| best.
| ohlookabird wrote:
| I don't know, my grand parents (80+ years) get along well
| with Signal. We have been using it actively over the past
| years and they can text, call, videocall and share
| pictures without issues. I am sure the UI can be
| improved, but it's not unusable at all.
| viraptor wrote:
| That whole UX issue really needs more explanation. For
| low-tech usage: you open signal, you select who you want
| to talk to, you see/type a message. The interface is
| almost the same as WhatsApp which people of all ages use
| every day. What's "ridiculously hard to use" here?
| Siira wrote:
| I trust Telegram, with its open API and third-party
| clients, more than a company that bans alternative
| clients. Why do they want me to use their client? Does it
| have some alterations from the source code?
| dspillett wrote:
| That is only going to work if you are prepared to be seen
| as unhelpful. The likelihood is that she'll just as someone
| else to show her the photos and complain about you while
| doing so. Personally I'd be fine with that, but it depends
| upon your family dynamic.
|
| I took a similar tack over malware & backups some years
| ago. I was spending far too much time being family tech
| support in "oh shit" moments, trying to remove crap from
| people's laptops and other, then (when I gave up doing it
| that way) hunting down all their files and backing them up
| before hosing and reinstalling the OS, hunting out the
| correct drivers, and each time giving advice on keeping
| backups, avoiding malware, telling them that they must keep
| any driver discs (or generate them from the machine) when
| they get a new device so they can be identified &
| reinstalled later, etc, each time being completely ignored
| because once things were restored they completely forgot
| the issue. Once I stopped rolling over and being infinitely
| and immediately helpful, instead saying "without the
| backups and such I asked you to keep it might take a few
| hours to sort this out, I can do it for you but I probably
| can't fit it in for a couple of weeks" most stopped asking
| me to help - not because they see my time as having value
| or because they've started to get less dim about letting
| malware in, but because I'm seen as grumpy and unhelpful.
| DeliriumTrigger wrote:
| That's exactly what they are doing right
| now...https://www.welivesecurity.com/2021/05/11/whatsapp-
| limit-fea...
| valenterry wrote:
| That happened before though and it didn't work out. I don't
| know why it should be different that time.
|
| Also, telegram is used a lot in Germany (compared to other
| countries) and together with Signal & others it got used
| much more recently. I don't think Whatsapp has much
| leverage here.
|
| Not sure if Telegram is better for the users though.
| sneak wrote:
| Telegram is not end to end encrypted, and thus is not
| really "secure" in the sense that we mean when we say
| "secure messenger".
| mrtksn wrote:
| This probably won't fly in Germany as Germans are very
| privacy cautious. Germany is a hole in the Google Street View
| Europe coverage because of this.
|
| They can limit some functionality and the Germans might be
| O.K. with it, however the margin in functionality would be
| someone else's opportunity.
| durnygbur wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| gmueckl wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| mrtksn wrote:
| 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.
| hnbad wrote:
| 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 cliche 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.
| herbst wrote:
| 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.
| odiroot wrote:
| > This probably won't fly in Germany as Germans are very
| privacy cautious.
|
| After having lived in Germany for ~7 years this statement
| always makes me laugh.
|
| Some examples:
|
| * Names on doorbells (yes, visible from the street).
|
| * People using "loyalty cards" left and right, letting the
| merchants track their behaviour even if they pay with cash.
|
| * Giving a stack of papers (including ID copy, salary
| statements etc) to a real estate owner to apply for a
| rental.
| lxgr wrote:
| > * Names on doorbells (yes, visible from the street).
|
| You need these because somehow the concept of apartment
| numbers does not exist. As a result, mail and food
| delivery in large apartment buildings is interesting as
| well.
|
| It seems pretty bizarre compared to all other countries
| I've ever sent mail to.
|
| > * People using "loyalty cards" left and right, letting
| the merchants track their behaviour even if they pay with
| cash.
|
| I'd argue that there is a pretty bimodal distribution of
| the population when it comes to privacy: Some people
| don't care at all and will use these cards, while others
| will fight every single bit of data stored about them
| tooth and nail.
|
| > * Giving a stack of papers (including ID copy, salary
| statements etc) to a real estate owner to apply for a
| rental.
|
| What's the problem here? Paper is inherently safe, unlike
| digital data. /s
|
| Well, at least faxes have been officially declared
| equally safe (or unsafe) as email, which hopefully will
| finally kill them off as the communications technology of
| choice of the administration.
| durnygbur wrote:
| Truth is, once registered at an address in Germany one is
| fully transparent to and trackable by all domestic actors
| - public, malicious, predatory. Any privacy hysteria in
| Germany boils down to one of: "Americans will watch us"
| or "Slavs will steal our possesions". Then there is the
| cherry on the top "Slavs will use American system to
| steal our possesions".
| CRConrad wrote:
| Well, the Little Father Of The Russians -- pretty much an
| Uber-Slav, no? -- already used American and British
| systems to steal a British referendum and an American
| election, so the cherry-on-top Germans seem to be the
| ones who got it right.
| durnygbur wrote:
| Not sure if serious or... heh.
| peteretep wrote:
| > If they stop offering or reduce WhatsApp services in Germany
| (or India), that's a great indicator that the service isn't
| profitable without the sale (or other commercial exploitation,
| Facebook is an ad company after all) of large amounts of user
| data.
|
| Don't we already know that about WhatsApp though? What other
| revenue source does it have?
| stefan_ wrote:
| Well it used to cost like $1 per year and that covered
| operating expenses many times over, yet..
| chii wrote:
| which they waived very often. I had whatsapp when there was
| officially a $1 per year cost of subscription, but the
| first year was free - and then the next, and the next, the
| "fees" kept getting waived. Then facebook acquired them,
| and removed the mention of fees altogether.
| mrweasel wrote:
| In that case they could easily adjust pricing to match each
| country and put a positive spin on it. Let people in Europe
| pay EUR5 a year, but tell them that they are finasing 5
| users in Africa.
| ulfw wrote:
| Erm yea they still wouldn't pay for this as long as other
| free alternatives are available. Messengers are a
| commodity product in terms of functionality.
|
| If the captive audience walks elsewhere the messengers
| dies (see Yahoo Messenger, MSN, AOL, the 250 different
| ones Google had at some point or other...)
| josefx wrote:
| People paid for WhatsApp before Facebook bought it and it
| was successfull. That is a fact spyware peddlers and
| their fanboys can't argue away.
|
| > Messengers are a commodity product in terms of
| functionality.
|
| They also where when whats app was a paid service. Yet
| the complaint against signal, etc. is that they are
| unusable because they are not nearly as full featured,
| hard to use and that people would rather continue to use
| WhatsApp for the network effect alone.
| thu2111 wrote:
| It wasn't really paid. They claimed it was but everyone I
| know always got the charge waived, which makes sense when
| you learn it was only ever meant to be a scaling break
| (see my other comment).
| mrweasel wrote:
| Yeah, I guess you're right.
|
| It just seems silly that people won't pay something as
| low as $5 - $10 per year for a service they use daily,
| while paying for multiple streaming services, cable TV or
| cell phone plans where they mostly use the data.
|
| Sure $10 doesn't represent the same value across the
| world, but I don't see an issue in letting the western
| world pay more. US users is already worth more to
| Facebook than someone in Africa.
| thu2111 wrote:
| No it didn't. The only reason they charged, or claimed they
| would charge, was to slow down growth when they were
| falling behind with their server scaling efforts. The
| founders of WhatsApp discuss this in an interview
| somewhere. It was an anti growth hack, not a business
| model.
| roachpepe wrote:
| Never thought to think about it this way - back in the
| day I just assumed they are most likely just trying to
| get more visibility with the news of the app going behind
| a paywall making conversation - and then later playing
| the "ok you win -card" and reversing the decision (with
| the customers are more important than money feels).
| Though back then there was no Signal or any other real
| mainstream usable alternative, and also Zuck hadn't
| bought them out yet I believe.
|
| But you might be right, if the snowball was about to go
| out of control this would have been a smart way to
| throttle growth, a little uncertainty would do the trick
| and is also conveniently quickly forgotten without
| significant PR loss. Good angle!
| Ayesh wrote:
| I wonder what is the true server cost of one user to the
| system. Of course, the initial costs and human costs are
| quite high, but in a running system, what could be the
| cost?
|
| They are E2E, so it is unlikely that the servers need to do
| any heavy processing. I see that I unused about 3GB of data
| for about a year, and with 3GB costing $0.30 even at AWS
| extortion prices, $1 seems like a good estimate.
| eqvinox wrote:
| Well, there's no other visible revenue source currently, but
| (a) we don't know what the ad/user data revenue looks like
| down to the finer details1, and (b) theoretically they could
| have planned to turn it into a subscription service (pretty
| unlikely, but who knows...)
|
| 1 some information could be gleaned from public filings, but
| the more interesting question is the relationship between
| amount of data extracted and revenue gained; any public
| filings only show the status quo.
| culturestate wrote:
| _> theoretically they could have planned to turn it into a
| subscription service (pretty unlikely, but who knows...)_
|
| WhatsApp originally _was_ a subscription service; when I
| first signed up, it cost $1 per year.
|
| They dropped the fee in 2016[1], and now Facebook is
| trying[2] to go back to the subscription model for
| business.
|
| 1. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-
| tech/ne...
|
| 2. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/22/facebook-to-charge-for-
| whats...
| eqvinox wrote:
| Oh, interesting, thanks, I didn't actually know that.
| lucian1900 wrote:
| The same happened at a smaller scale when Chinese regulators
| ruled loot boxes must disclose their loot tables. Even though
| they aren't guaranteed to be identical in other countries, a
| great deal was learned about how such games operate.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| "Germany's leading data protection regulator for Facebook has
| banned the social network from using data from WhatsApp users."
|
| Not to be pedantic, but the parent comment is making a common
| mistake by using the term "selling" to refer to the way that
| "tech" companies like Facebook/WhatsApp sell users out.
|
| Facebook/WhatsApp does not need to "sell" data. They can
| honestly say they do not sell data, and that is exactly what
| they say in their public communications, hoping to fool readers
| who believe "selling user data" is the problem. (Maybe they
| give data away instead. Researchers, API users, and others have
| had signifcant access in the past. Regulating only commercial
| exploitation might not prohibit those transfers.)
|
| What they do sell is access to users.
|
| Thus what we want to regulate is not "selling" but "using".^1
| (Ideally we want to regulate collection as well, but this does
| not account for data already collected.)
|
| Read the press release from the HmbDfPI. There is nothing about
| selling, only about collecting and using.
|
| https://datenschutz-hamburg.de/assets/pdf/2021-05-11-press-r...
|
| 1. One instance where we might want to prohibit sale (or
| transfer) of data is in mergers and acquisitions. If, e.g, the
| user entrusts company A with data, then if company A goes
| bankrupt, company B should not be able to acquire the data
| without the user's express permission.
| manquer wrote:
| Data doesn't mean just transactional records, any aggregation
| derived is absolutely data too.
|
| If my chat messages help Facebook understand my consumption
| preferences and if they are using that in the chat platform
| or somewhere else to show me an advert customized using that
| information gleaned about me using my private messages or
| browsing behavior, then _absolutely_ they are selling data
| about me.
|
| It does not matter customer is getting my data along with 500
| other people and cannot identify me personally.
|
| It does not matter if they are also selling the ad space as
| well. An advertising firm benefits from this kind of
| targeting for which they will pay premium price over
| competing ad spaces. The base value derived is from any
| eyeballs on the copy( any traditional advert) and the premium
| is for my eyeballs on the copy at the right time.
| mgraczyk wrote:
| The difference is that the customer doesn't get any data on
| this case, not even anonymised.
|
| Generally "sell" implies that the thing being sold is
| transferred in some way, but that's not happening here. The
| data remains with Facebook.
|
| It's like going to a restaurant and buying a meal. They
| didn't sell you the oven, they just used it to make your
| food.
| nr2x wrote:
| It's a little more complicated with the WhatsApp business
| tools, this isn't normal adtech stuff. Search the web for
| "whatsapp crm integration".
| eqvinox wrote:
| That's why I put the "(or other commercial exploitation,
| Facebook is an ad company after all)" there. And the
| difference, as you already note yourself, is splitting hairs.
| It's the kind of thing you find in a novel, making a deal
| with the devil who then goes to trick you on a technicality.
|
| They're selling the fact that they have the data. They're
| selling limited access to the data. It's just exploiting the
| resource to the maximum gain; if they sold the user data
| itself they'd be selling the crown jewels and obsolete
| themselves.
| [deleted]
| thu2111 wrote:
| It's very far from a technicality, the meaning is totally
| different. Nobody would claim a TV station is selling it's
| viewer's data and yet they are willing to make this
| deceptive claim about tech companies, even though the
| "argument" is exactly the same.
| planb wrote:
| This is not splitting hairs!
|
| Ask your grand parents, non tech savvy friends, ... if they
| are okay with Facebook selling their data to anyone. They
| will object heavily!
|
| Then ask them if they are okay with Facebook using their
| data to show them more relevant ads. Many will be okay with
| that.
|
| Then again, ask them if they feel okay being "tracked" -
| guess what, nobody likes that.
|
| What I'm trying to say is that I think theres a middle
| ground in targeted advertising, where there's still enough
| money to be made and still most people feel like they're
| getting a fair deal (in paying with their data).
| krageon wrote:
| > I think theres a middle ground
|
| What you've highlighted is a lack of education about what
| different abuses mean. There is no difference between
| tracking and targeted advertising as it exists today.
| There is no difference between selling your data and
| "using it to show more relevant ads" as it is today. The
| fact that some people mistakenly believe there _are_
| differences is tragic and the fact that a company can lie
| to everyone in this way is a travesty.
| hrbf wrote:
| > A spokesperson for WhatsApp said: "As the Hamburg DPA's claims
| are wrong, the order will not impact the continued roll-out of
| the update.
|
| The amount of Facebook's arrogance at play here is just
| staggering.
| ab111111111 wrote:
| Quite. Who are mere German public officials to question the
| rectitude of an organisation as august as Facebook?
| Graffur wrote:
| To be fair, it seems like the German public office have not
| done their work and have some thing incorrect. As such, it
| doesn't apply.
| mrjin wrote:
| That's simply because the penalty of violating the law is no
| more than a breeze in comparison to their revenue.
| klaustopher wrote:
| The fee is up to 4% of facebooks annual worldwide revenue ...
| That would be ~2bn $
| qznc wrote:
| So far the responsible DPC just ignores the complaints
| though: https://noyb.eu/en/irish-dpc-handles-9993-gdpr-
| complaints-wi...
| jazu wrote:
| That German authority interprets the law in some way, Facebook
| interprets it in some other way. i assume the courts will
| decide. Seems reasonable to me.
| randomlurking wrote:
| When it comes to my data, I'd rather not have them use it
| until forbidden. I want it to be not Used until explicitly
| allowed
| noja wrote:
| What can Facebook argue against here? They are going back on what
| they guaranteed to allow the acquisition.
| annadane wrote:
| The same bullshit they usually do to make them look like the
| poor victims
| nr2x wrote:
| So is this is the start of finally bypassing Ireland?
| saos wrote:
| Wondering what the UK will do..
| cuillevel3 wrote:
| Whatsapp already had a separate privacy policy for the European
| region (https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/updates/privacy-policy-
| eea?la...)
|
| Apparently that was too permissive. I guess they had to try?
| zwaps wrote:
| The privacy policy mildly states that they do not share
| personal data with facebook for ads right now.
|
| But it also says they might do so at any time, at the latest
| when the EU okays it.
|
| So yeah, at the very least it is too vague to be a proper
| privacy policy allowing informed consent
| thamer wrote:
| This article is pretty vague. What does it even mean to ban
| Facebook "from using data from WhatsApp users"?
|
| Facebook "uses data from WhatsApp users" to support basic
| features like authentication, is that banned now? What about
| sending a WhatsApp message to a contact, doesn't that "use data
| from WhatsApp users"? Facebook has to look up some internal user
| ID (user data), then route the message to their devices, probably
| by device ID (also user data). How do you do that if using data
| banned?
|
| I suspect there's more to it but this particular article isn't
| telling the story in a particularly clear or helpful manner.
| Hopefully the actual injunction is not as vague.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| From Spiegel:
|
| _" Am Dienstag gab Caspars Behorde bekannt, dass sie eine
| Anordnung erlassen hat, die es Facebook - also der Mutterfirma
| von WhatsApp - verbietet, personenbezogene Daten von WhatsApp
| zu >>eigenen Zwecken<< zu verarbeiten.
|
| Gemeint ist damit, dass Facebook jene Daten zum Beispiel nicht
| fur sein Anzeigengeschaft nutzen darf. "_
|
| Roughly translated as: Whatsapp is not allowed to share
| personal user data with Facebook for Facebooks own use, for
| example Facebook cannot collect data for the purpose of
| advertisement (and my guess is any other form of monetization).
| Facebook says further down in the article they currently don't
| share data between the services for those purposes.
|
| I also think you're confused about the scope. It's no problem
| that WhatsApp uses its own userdata, the problem is WhatsApp
| sharing data with Facebook, which is a distinct service.
|
| https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/apps/whatsapp-hamburger-date...
| thamer wrote:
| Ah, that makes sense. Thanks for the details!
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| What kind of wannabe authoritarian regime bans a company from
| using data it owns?
| akie wrote:
| A "regime" that values the privacy of its citizens over the
| profits of a multinational?
| rubyist5eva wrote:
| Ah yes, just like the vaccine passports they will be
| implementing because they value "privacy". Sure.
| robin_reala wrote:
| The legal situation is that Facebook doesn't own any of this
| data. It has collected it, but the data is owned and controlled
| by individual users, and they have the right to say what
| Facebook should be allowed to do with it.
| CRConrad wrote:
| A legitimate democratically elected national government in a
| continental union that conditioned its anti-trust approval of
| the acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook precisely on personal
| data not being used in that way.
|
| _That_ "kind of wannabe authoritarian regime". HTH!
| amaccuish wrote:
| Fantastic news and really ideally the whole purchase should be
| reversed (and obviously more ideally never allowed to happen in
| the first place)
| throwawaysea wrote:
| To take this further, we also need to reverse other purchases
| like Instagram, YouTube, Twitch, Zenimax, Doubleclick, PA Semi,
| and so on. We also need a new vocabulary and new concepts. We
| shouldn't rely on traditional notions of monopoly market share
| or "consumer harm" to decide when an acquisition/merger/stake
| should be allowed. We need a new definition to prevent gigantic
| conglomerates with immense market power, and then we need to
| enforce that law aggressively, in splitting up existing
| companies and scrutinizing future deals.
| arcticbull wrote:
| Reasonably anticipated future consumer harm sounds like a
| good model to me, IMO.
|
| For instance, if we can reasonably assume an acquisition will
| lead to the potential for future harm through accumulation of
| power, influence, data, etc, that should be sufficient to
| block it.
|
| Mergers are in and of themselves simply recognizing an
| efficiency of scale. It should be possible for a business to
| achieve success without that shortcut, broadly speaking. Once
| they're big enough already, that is.
|
| This seems to tie in nicely to the recent narrative that
| efficiency is the opposite of resiliency, and that maybe not
| all efficiencies are good.
| chmod775 wrote:
| We need the old vocabulary back.
|
| Much smaller companies _used_ to get split up, but with
| globalization our understanding of what a large company or
| what a monopoly is changed.
|
| When it comes to these things countries nowadays are more
| hands-off than they ever were. Further, advocates of these
| 'hands-off' approaches like to pretend we'd be returning to
| some ideal of old that brought prosperity and countries
| 'meddling' in the 'free market' is some modern fallacy, which
| is just revisionist history.
|
| Edit: While the above is more personal observation than based
| on any hard data, there appears to be research supporting my
| position. This is looking like a good overview:
| https://som.yale.edu/faculty-research-centers/centers-
| initia...
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| Yes, some mere 10 years later politicians in the EU realize
| that FB should never have been allowed to take over
| WA/Instragram. The problem is, the politicians in charge at the
| time did probably not even use a smartphone and had no idea
| about the tech sphere.
|
| In my opinion, FAMG (FAANG minus Apple and Netflix plus
| Microsoft) must be broken up. They all do use their market
| power to prevent competition, and they continue to use their
| money to buy competitors and/or startups that could compete one
| day.
| lazysheepherd wrote:
| Interesting you could utter "use their market power to.." and
| somehow leave Apple out. While Apple literally is the
| greatest walled garden which ever existed.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| This cat and mouse game will continue forever as I don't expect
| governments that give Facebook a clean chit in exchange of data
| sharing to do much policing. The only real power lies in our
| hands. Many of us change/mute the channel when the ads come on,
| do the same effectively online by blocking ads and if that is not
| possible, by _never_ clicking on ads. The whole point is to sell
| and if we ensure that we don't pass any signal back in terms of
| how we are deciding, the point of ad spends themselves will be in
| question. The only effective wakeup call for such scum companies
| is their revenue taking a hit.
| tchalla wrote:
| Another Source -
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-11/facebook-...
|
| > Johannes Caspar, who heads Hamburg's privacy authority, issued
| a three-month emergency ban, prohibiting Facebook from continuing
| with the data collection. He also asked a panel of European Union
| data regulators to take action and issue a ruling across the
| 27-nation bloc. The new WhatsApp terms enabling the data scoop
| are invalid because they are intransparent, inconsistent and
| overly broad, he said.
| humanlion87 wrote:
| > Facebook's WhatsApp unit called Caspar's claims "wrong" and
| said the order won't stop the roll-out of the new terms.
|
| I don't understand how Facebook says this order will not stop
| the roll-out. Are they implying that the authority has no power
| to implement/enforce the ban?
| Jonanin wrote:
| They incorrectly assumed (like much of the media) that this
| update was about sharing data of personal messages with
| Facebook, when it is in fact not.
| zwaps wrote:
| It is, but not yet in the EU.
|
| It literally says : we will share everything with Facebook
| as soon as the EU allows. Right now we do not. But we
| might.
|
| I mean it's written there.
| tpush wrote:
| Where does it literally say that?
| zwaps wrote:
| I quote from their website
|
| ------
|
| Today, WhatsApp does not share your personal information
| with Facebook to improve your Facebook product
| experiences or provide you more relevant Facebook ad
| experiences on Facebook. This is a result of discussions
| with the Irish Data Protection Commission and other Data
| Protection Authorities in Europe. We're always working on
| new ways to improve how you experience WhatsApp and the
| other Facebook Company Products you use. Should we choose
| to share such data with the Facebook Companies for this
| purpose in the future, we will only do so when we reach
| an understanding with the Irish Data Protection
| Commission on a future mechanism to enable such use.
| We'll keep you updated on new experiences we offer and
| our information practices.
|
| ------------
|
| This is legalese for pretty much what I posted. In
| particular, the keep you update here does not necessarily
| mean you get to agree to a new privacy policy, as the
| current policy does not include a commitment not to share
| data (for ads etc) with facebook in the first place. This
| statement is deviously placed outside the privacy policy!
|
| Also further up they say that they associate the whatsapp
| profile with any facebook profile in the
| household/net/vicinity. To be clear, they do this now.
| Not in the future.
| zwaps wrote:
| Oh just on case you are unsure what will happen with all
| this, it's the following:
|
| In the near future, they will start sharing all that
| juicy data with facebook based on some made up precedent,
| new technical justification, some claim to pseudonymity,
| or discussion with some Irish politician or whatnot.
|
| After being found out, they will then eventually
| apologize, do better next time and pay the fine, which
| pales in comparison to the profit gained from that data.
|
| Just as they are now replying to an order from a data
| protection official with: 'Lol nope'
| wutXthree wrote:
| Just don't use Facebook or Facebook Companies products?
| Like probably most people don't?
| krono wrote:
| Just not be such a contemptible company? Like probably
| most other companies aren't?
| wutXthree wrote:
| Yeah, sure, but why use them if they choose to be such.
| krono wrote:
| They've managed to become essential communication
| infrastructure. Exposure of these services to you, but
| also exposure of your data to these companies is
| unavoidable.
|
| The neighbourhood watch uses WhatsApp as its primary
| communication channel, friends are posting group activity
| photo's and are reminiscing about past activities on
| Instagram, all the internet your elderly uncle knows is
| Facebook, all the local used goods sales go through
| Facebook, some of the best consumer grade VR sets are
| owned and sold by Facebook, many modern websites are
| built on Facebook's React, any new novel app that is
| released gets copied within months by Facebook.
|
| There is no choice `preparetobeassimilated.mp3`
|
| This is 100% on the regulatory bodies who just let this
| happen, and still are. They just don't seem to understand
| the gravity of the situation.
| wutXthree wrote:
| Sorry, just don't agree.
| bryan_w wrote:
| > Should we choose to share such data with the Facebook
| Companies for this purpose in the future, we will only do
| so when we reach an understanding with the Irish Data
| Protection Commission on a future mechanism to enable
| such use
|
| Where's the documentation that this happened? Surely
| there would be some declaration from the Irish Data
| Protection Commission if this was happening.
| holoduke wrote:
| EU should completely ban Facebook and WhatsApp entirely. EU
| should say fuck that rotten person called Zuckerberg. From
| tomorrow all ISPs will block all Facebook products.
| ranguna wrote:
| Personally, I'm already blocking Facebook through nextdns.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > From tomorrow all ISPs will block all Facebook products.
|
| That actually happened in my country. Lasted a few days,
| nothing of substance happened in response. Few people installed
| alternatives.
| romanovcode wrote:
| > From tomorrow all ISPs will block all Facebook products.
|
| This is not how EU does things.
| tgragnato wrote:
| The way EU does things is getting tiresome. I'd love if we
| could blackhole their ASes.
|
| > "As the Hamburg DPA's claims are wrong, the order will not
| impact the continued roll-out of the update."
|
| ... blocking the assets of criminals does not impact civil
| liberties
| mseri wrote:
| CNBC provides [1] links to the original source of the news [2]
|
| [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/11/facebook-has-been-told-to-
| st... [2]: https://datenschutz-
| hamburg.de/pressemitteilungen/2021/05/20...
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