
Spain Fines Facebook Over Tracking Users Without Consent - thg
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/spain-fines-facebook-deleted-accounts,35425.html
======
t1o5
Facebook tried to pull a similar gimmick in India called "Free Basics". It was
dealt with criticism and the regulatory authority in India was smart enough to
reject the proposal. Reliance, one of the sheepskin corporation in India
wanted to embrace Free Basics with Facebook but could not. Now Reliance is
trying a similar act with "Jio" cellphones.

Its a good thing that many countries are realizing that US based monopolies
are not good for their economy. Take China for example, their companies are
well off like AliPay, WeChat, Tencent. Its because they are protected from
monopolies who have the firepower to kill them. Keeping the monopolies in
check will spur the growth & innovation in developing countries.

~~~
aaron-lebo
It makes me weirdly happy as an American to see it happen. What happens when
instead of massive, boring, soulless, mediocre corporations like Facebook
serving 2 billion sharecroppers, we've got multiple or even dozens of smaller
networks serving regions and niches? That has the potential for innovation we
can't begin to understand. Facebook is akin to McDonald's not only spreading
internationally but also replacing all other restaurants once it gets in a
country. Who likes Big Macs that much?

It's why we should criticize the actions of any power (whether the Us, China,
the EU, Russia) to control citizens and eliminate smaller cultures. Maybe
melodramatic but it's exciting. The growth of Chinese networks is interesting,
wonder how they would develop under a democratic government? Further
innovation or do they only exist because of that environment as you suggest?

~~~
wil421
>Facebook is akin to McDonald's not only spreading internationally but also
replacing all other restaurants once it gets in a country.

Sources for McDonlads replacing all other restaurants. Maybe you haven't
traveled as much but for me I always check out local McDonalds, hardly
actually eating there. One of the reason they have been successful is adopting
local tastes. Costa Rica has Gallo Pinto in addition to fries as options.
Serbia has this crazy Crispy meat thing.

With McDonalds I know what the product is and I pay for it. With Facebook it's
a little less clear what they are doing. One certainty with FB, we are the
product.

With FB they are a little nefarious, especially the Free Basics thing. Google
is doing similar things with Google Fiber and the defunct ballon idea.

~~~
thecrazyone
I concur with your McD thinking. I think you've got FB and Google wrong. I'm
not saying they're saints, but in their self interest, they serve their
customers. So they've their customers' interests in mind

If people cared about privacy that much, they should use some other network.
People weigh the trade-offs of benefits vs costs and still choose to use FB
and Google.

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bsaul
Those are the kind of regulations that should help create a consensus around
the utility of the european union.

Giant corporation, spending tons of marketing money to make everyone think
they're trying to help the world, while behaving like scammers with regards to
personal data, and like white collar criminals with regard to tax should be
prosecuted to death.

~~~
fwn
> The EU considers the death penalty as a cruel, inhuman and irreversible
> punishment which fails to act as a deterrent to criminal behaviour.

[http://www.eidhr.eu/highlights/death-
penalty](http://www.eidhr.eu/highlights/death-penalty)

edit: Hmm, now I'm not sure whether you meant a companies metaphorical death?
..I'll leave it here anyhow. :)

~~~
jacquesm
Revocation of corporate charter is the equivalent of the death penalty for a
corporation.

~~~
ryandrake
Doesn't happen often (at all?) and even if it did, what stops the company's
leadership from starting a new, identical company with a identical board,
employee list, etc. the next second?

~~~
jacquesm
Jail?

~~~
ryandrake
Sorry, I don't know how "losing your corporate charter" works. Who goes to
jail?

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Mahn
I don't have anything against regulations and fines to keep monopolistic
companies in check, but that being said, as an European, I can't help but feel
a little appalled that there's so much focus on this and so little on actually
creating European Googles and Facebooks.

~~~
icebraining
The EU and many of its members have plenty of programs encouraging
entrepreneurship. Stuff like
[http://startupeuropeclub.eu/](http://startupeuropeclub.eu/)

Whether they're actually _able_ to lead to the creation of European Googles
and Facebooks is a different question.

~~~
nradov
Those programs are mostly cargo culting and fail to address the essential
aspects of an entrepreneurial environment. It's a way to seem like they're
doing something rather than making the hard changes that would piss off some
powerful special interests and rentiers.

~~~
lioeters
One thing I hear about the startup environment in Europe is that investors are
more conservative and risk-averse compared to those in the US. Would you
elaborate on the "essential aspects of an entrepreneurial environment", and
the hard changes that would need to be made to improve the situation?

Also curious to hear more about these powerful special interests and
"rentiers" \- any specific examples in mind?

~~~
franciscop
Try becoming a freelancer opening a company in Spain. Orders of magnitude
harder than in the US, so for many recent grads is not a viable option at all.

~~~
bjelkeman-again
Different EU countries have different contexts. In Sweden it is very easy.

~~~
likelynew
I think the point is not how easy is to start a company, but how easy is to
get funds that you can spend without fear of failing.

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setgree
Not the first time Spain has taken on a tech giant, but it didn't go so great
with Google: [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/new-study-
shows-...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/07/new-study-shows-spains-
google-tax-has-been-a-disaster-for-publishers/)

"A study commissioned by Spanish publishers has found that a new intellectual
property law passed in Spain last year, which charges news aggregators like
Google for showing snippets and linking to news stories, has done substantial
damage to the Spanish news industry."

~~~
kaoD
Spaniard here.

Google tax was just a ploy from our crony capitalist government to divert
money towards publishers aligned with them (i.e. most major news outlets).
Actually, the publishers are the ones who promoted it (lobbying for it long
before it was even a law proposal) and the government just followed its
masters (the two large media groups who own mostly everything).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AEDE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AEDE)

> In response, Google announced that they would be shutting down the Spanish
> version of their Google News service.

>

> The AEDE reacted by lobbying the Spanish government to force Google to keep
> it running.

It would be funny if it wasn't so worrying.

__

Fortunately this just looks like public workers from AEPD (Agencia Española de
Protección de Datos, Spanish Agency of Data Protection) doing their jobs.

AEPD is one of the few public organizations I'm glad we have.

~~~
tiagobertolo
How is your government capitalist? You are drowned in bureaucracy, taxes and
debt not capitalism.

I am not taking this story as an example. Most of southern Europe countries
are far from being capitalist.

~~~
duncan_bayne
He said "crony capitalist", which is quite a different thing to capitalist.

~~~
setgree
I personally prefer the word "corporatist" for this phenomenon to avoid this
ambiguity. Crony-captalist has an anti-capitalist tinge, which I don't favor,
but is one reason why I think is has been adopted broadly.

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r3bl
One valid point I've seen someone say about this in a tweet (I'm paraphrasing
it):

By the time you read this comment, Facebook (presumably) already made enough
profit to pay this fine.

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mankash666
A 1.2M euro (non) fine? I hope it's a "first offense" discount.

~~~
tryingagainbro
Actually it's a steep fine, it's just for 3 users /instances. Now I have to
wonder why didn't they uncover more?

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bg4
Life is better without Facebook.

I'm considering ordering a few hundred stickers with this phrase on them.

~~~
beedogs
I've just shut mine down again and it's been off my phone for months. Things
are much better without it.

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baxtr
Well 1.2 million euros fine is nothing to Facebook. That won't stop them from
anything

~~~
kbart
That's just a warning shot. Next time they get caught for the same thing it
won't end so well, so it's just like saying: "stop what you are doing or there
will be consequences, here's some little fine so you take us seriously".

~~~
baxtr
ok, makes sense. I didn't realize it was for 3 users only. I still wonder how
impressed they really are...

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jondubois
I think this is a good step.

EU countries should start fining and taxing these US tech companies heavily to
force them out of business in the EU and leave room for local EU competitors.
The EU should try to be more like China.

~~~
matt4077
I'm sorry but that's bullshit. Almost by definition, whatever replacements
would be created would be inferior to the banned originals.

If you start using fines and taxes as instruments of protectionism, you've
also become a country no longer ruled by laws, but by the arbitrary whims of
whoever is in power.

I already spend too much time online defending (for example) the EU's
antitrust policy against accusations of nationalism. If that sort of thing
really did happen, it would be the start of a trade war. And nobody is
interested in a trade war, except those whose thinking is impaired by some
rather anachronistic xenophobia.

Specifically for Facebook: about 40% of my friends are outside the EU. I
wouldn't create an account on any social network that they are not on.

~~~
jondubois
Inferior initially but they may become superior in the long run at least in
some specific aspects.

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topbanana
Isn't it up to the EU to enforce its laws, rather than member countries?

~~~
klez
No, the EU sets the laws, member countries implement and enforce them. If they
don't, you can appeal further up the EU. See here
[https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-making-process/overview-
la...](https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-making-process/overview-law-making-
process/applying-eu-law_en)

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vectorEQ
good way for countries to make some extra cash sueing these giants... but what
does the user actually get from it? Nothing ever changes...

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hbosch
I can't help but read this headline in light of the Equifax ("Equihax") story
also on the front page today. "Tracking without consent" seems an odd reason
for a _government_ to crack down on a business. Perhaps Google and Facebook,
in Europe, aren't allowed to "track without consent" – but other companies can
and do. Not just Amazon, as a direct comparison, but apparently credit bureaus
and the government themselves are allowed to track me without my consent.

I generally agree that "tracking without consent" is invasive, but if a
government is going to use it as a way to extort tech companies for fines I
would appreciate a little more consistency in who is being called out.

~~~
germanier
Details are obviously different in each country but around here in Germany
credit bureaus can't track you without consent. It's pretty hard to avoid
giving that if you want to interact with banks and other companies but it
definitely is possible if you are careful about what you do. Of course if you
decide not to grant that consent many companies will not do business with you.
Not sure what your point about Amazon is, of course the same rule applies to
them as to anyone else.

The government itself has very strict rules about what data can be collected
and accessed. Unfortunately those rules are sometimes violated (especially in
the intelligence space).

At work we have some private data we need to perform our tasks of tens of
millions of people. However, that data is regularly pruned and purged on a
defined schedule so that we never have more than we strictly need. That's in
stark contrast to what e.g. Facebook does which apparently holds onto every
bit of data they have ever collected about anyone in case it might be
profitable to use at some point.

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cabalamat
> 1.2 million euro fine

This is merely a cost of doing business. If Spain was serious, a EUR 1.2
billion fine would have more effect.

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return0
Facebook could just ask its users "Do you agree to be tracked, even without
your consent?" and they 'd still say yes. If it mattered, people would have
switched to one of the open source alternatives. This fine serves more as
governmental virtue signaling than anything else.

~~~
kbart
It's illegal in EU to get a broad consent (aka "we will track you anytime,
collect any data we like and do with it as we please"). EULA must state
_exactly_ what data is collected and how it will be used, also it must be
retractable. You can joke as much as you like about "cookie law", but other
privacy laws in EU quite formidable (probably the best in current world
anyway). And they will be even stricter soon, as GDPR hits in.

~~~
return0
and soon europeans will seek VPNs to access a banned facebook? I mean i fail
to see how the cookie law has affected the broader internet in a positive way.

~~~
la_oveja
Cookie law is pretty much a joke, as the parent comment stated. But there are
some serious and useful regulations in the EU that aren't a joke.

And if FB is banned from Europe (which I highly doubt), the average user won't
be able to put a VPN so they'll simply switch to a clone most probably. imho
FB is only popular because of the vast userbase and content, not because it is
a great platform. We've seen clones appear, get pretty popular and die because
they can't sustain a large userbase.

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adrianlmm
Is Google Next?

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cityzen
Multi-national advertising platform is tracking people without consent...
shocking.

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otherme1
Make no mistake: this is a form of taxation. Our (i'm spanish) minister of
economy has been very imaginative in the last 4 years to find new sources of
revenue.

~~~
matt4077
Please don't spread these conspiracy theories.

As just one of many arguments against: Such decisions are subject to judicial
reviews (i. e. Facebook can sue). Spanish judges are just as independent from
the executive as they are in most countries, once they are appointed. What
motivation would these judges have to undermine the rule of law (something
they studied and have worked in their whole life), when they can't be
pressured, nor are they recipients of any part of such fines?

It gets even harder to think of a possible motivation when you realise that
any court rulings could be appealed in European courts, completely out of the
sphere of influence of the Spanish government.

~~~
otherme1
You probably know that Facebook is not going to the judges. They would pay the
peanuts just to forget the issue.

The EU countries are playing this game since the crisis started in 2008.
Spanish politicians just want their share. All of the Ireland-Google issue was
exactly the same but bigger: even if they abide the law, politicians tweak a
new one just to milk big companies. They just take the money from where it is.

I don't know about conspiracies you talk. This is all happening in day light
and applauded by the people.

