

Norway goes after Facebook and Zynga - jp
http://labs.teppefall.com/2010/05/norway_goes_after_facebook_and_zynga.html

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marvin
Norwegian here. This is a very ugly can of worms for my countrymen.
Datatilsynet is one of the world's strictest authorities when it comes to
guarding the privacy of normal citizens. Privacy and confidentiality of
personal information is taken very, very seriously in Norway. Personally, I
believe that we are very lucky to have an official body that actually cares
about our privacy. These guys have time and time again stood up against bad
trends in this area - most recently speaking up against the EU data retention
directive that would require ISPs to keep records about all electronic
communications sent between citizens of the EU (and Norway, which is strictly
speaking not in the EU).

The problem is that Facebook is almost certainly in violation of lots of
Norwegian privacy regulations. But banning Facebook outright is not an option.
I think what we will see in the end are official warnings from the Norwegian
authorities about the privacy risks Facebook represent, and possibly some
clarification about what whomever gets hold of this information can do with
it. It would not surpsise me to see a lawsuit soon in which the right of
employers to discriminate on the basis of Facebook-acquired information is
challenged and struck down.

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gyardley
Getting reported to an authority isn't the same thing as actually getting
investigated by the authority. I don't know about Norway's data protection
folks, but a lot of European data protection authorities are under-resourced
for the fairly broad mandate they have.

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phreeza
Well if a similar complaint and/or resulting investigation brought Apple to
back down, there must be some resources behind it.

~~~
gyardley
True, but I'm skeptical that happened. The referenced Norwegian complaint was
brought in 2006 and gave Apple weeks to comply. Apple removed DRM from iTunes
in 2009 - I suspect for reasons unrelated to Norway.

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phreeza
Here's another link with some more info(in English) and the complaint as a
pdf(in Norwegian)

[http://forbrukerportalen.no/Artikler/2010/Facebook_and_Zynga...](http://forbrukerportalen.no/Artikler/2010/Facebook_and_Zynga_reported_to_the_Data_Inspectorate)

