
Facebook Dating launch blocked in Europe after it fails to show privacy workings - ajaviaad
https://techcrunch.com/2020/02/13/facebook-dating-launch-blocked-in-europe-after-it-fails-to-show-privacy-workings/
======
AsusFan
Clickbait headline.

Facebook was not "blocked" \- they voluntarily halted the rollout of the
feature themselves. NOBODY told them to do this.

Reading between the lines, someone at Facebook's legal department was asleep
at the wheel and forgot to provide the authorities with the required
documentation. The DPC nudged them a bit and Facebook hit the panic button.

~~~
andylynch
A raid on their offices is perhaps a bit more than a nudge?

~~~
TeMPOraL
A Klingon nudge, then.

------
ryanmercer
It was garbage anyway. I used it briefly during the first week it launched in
the United States and, at least here in Indy, about every fourth girl was
blatantly in a relationship. Some even had kissy-face wedding photos in their
profiles. Facebook only gives you the option if your profile is set to single
but that's just a toggle.

That first week it was also already full of blatantly fake profiles. You're
telling me there are three women that look identical to Kevin Smith's daughter
and just happened to be at the same red carpet event, with the same dress, in
the exact same pose? And then despite me having it set to female it showed me
several men that I'm 99% certain were not trans and were either idiots and set
their Facebook profile up wrong, or intentionally input things wrong to try
and obfuscate their data profile.

It also made the promise (I think they did anyway) of not showing you people
you were friends with. It didn't, but it did show me a bunch of my graduating
class from 16 years prior and gobs of friends of friends. I saw considerably
more people on it that I knew/knew of than I ever did with
Tinder/OkCupid/Bumble.

~~~
skocznymroczny
So on par with Tinder?

------
pmlnr
Only one week and regulatory forces managed to push back?!

I wonder when someone from the same regulatory forces will help Ruben out:
[https://ruben.verborgh.org/facebook/](https://ruben.verborgh.org/facebook/)

He's been waiting for over a year now for his actual dataset - fighting for us
all.

~~~
krick
Ok, I assume it would help if he could state his demands in more formal and
legally actionable form instead of joking and telling fun stories of meeting
FB employees at a conference, but regardless:

> Facebook has not replied after three months, even though they are legally
> required to answer within one month

So, I'm ready to accept everything else is a subject to some legal debate, but
this seems like pretty straight-forward violation of the law, isn't it? I
mean, shouldn't they be actually punished for it by, like, paying money?

~~~
revscat
Facebook seems to believe (understand?) that it is part of the new reality
where due to their size and revenue the law only loosely applies to them, and
mostly at their convenience.

~~~
Mirioron
That's not _new_ reality. That is the world we live in. If you're big
enough/your product is widespread enough then you get to set the rules. From a
practical point of view it even makes some sense. It's up to the authorities
(most likely a DPA) to actually do something about Facebook not adhering to
the rules.

------
Zenst
Just in time for Valentines day, you just know somebody in marketing will be
emoting over this..

~~~
xxs
The Valentine Day is not a big event at this side of the Atlantic. There is
some chance, the marketing has caught up with the younger generation, though.

~~~
intarga
Just wanted to point out that Valentines day is originally a European
tradition.

~~~
xxs
Indeed, the 'tradition'/origin has the roots somewhere down the Roman Empire,
3rd century. Now it has been commercialized to a high degree.

My point was something like: take US holidays grade on the scale 1-10;
Christmas 10, Halloween, Thanksgiving Day - 9, 4th of July, New Year - 8....
Valentine's Day - 4, Memorial Day - 2. (not all rated, obviously)

Germany - barely registers as anything; Spain, Sweden, Estonia - not a thing
at all. There might be promotions, advertising, etc. but it's not an engraved
thing for the decision to matter the date/proximity of Valentine's Day.

------
bilekas
Ireland has a lot of strange relationships with large tech companies, but I
can say for sure, we have some great data protection laws.

Genuinely delighted that some people pay attention to these things and know
what they're talking about.

~~~
F30
Laws maybe, though these are set at the EU level (and one might argue about
the greatness of GDPR).

Still, the rest of the EU (or at least Germany) is quite unhappy with the
enforcement of these laws in Ireland. It is absurd that the Irish Data
Protection Commissioner is supposed to control the privacy of most larger tech
corporations for the whole EU. A few years ago, they only had 22 employees and
their only office was literally co-located with a supermarket in the suburbs
[1]. They got a second office since then and apparently are now at around 100
employees [2], but that is still quite small if you have to control giants
like Google, Facebook and more.

So, from the outside it looks like Ireland's "strange relationships" also
include privacy matters.

[1] [https://www.gutjahr.biz/2012/07/facebook-eu-
datenschutz/](https://www.gutjahr.biz/2012/07/facebook-eu-datenschutz/) [2]
[https://www.dataprotection.ie/en/news-media/press-
releases/d...](https://www.dataprotection.ie/en/news-media/press-releases/dpc-
publishes-annual-report-25-may-31-december-2018)

~~~
tpmx
This stuff should be handled at a union level. Seems like low-hanging fruit to
me.

As in: I don't think many EU citizens would object to having this being taken
from the national level to the union level.

Create a single, strong EU data protection authority, placed somewhere in the
union, after the typical competition. I'd suggest Sweden, but would also be
happy with Denmark, Germany or the Netherlands.

~~~
jkaptur
I don’t know much about the EU - why is the physical location of the office
important?

~~~
johannes1234321
Which office? Facebook's or the data protection agency's?

EU (more or less) has rules that the countries are primarily responsible for
execution of the law and it makes sense that if a local shop causes privacy
issues they should be handled by a local authority.

Now companies like Facebook play the system a bit. As first line of defense
they claim that their European offices are just resellers of ads etc. and the
actual operations are done by Corp U.S. (or Corp Bahamas or something) and for
a second line of defense pick the country with the "best" enforcement and
taxation track record. That can be done as in order for not each country
trying to go after their local subsidiary the country with the European
headquarters can go after that HQ for all larger cases.

Now the Irish government is smart - they see that 1% taxes on all of European
business of Corp is better than 40% of only Irish business, thus they don't
employ overly strict oversight.

Does it make sense for corporations like Facebook? Probably not. But for
changing this this requires a unanimous change of EU law in the EU council and
getting Irish to agree to that is tough, essentially meaning to pay them
subsideries for their farmers or something to compensate.

Also, why to U.S. corps go there besides taxation? Language and common law.
Essentially going to UK and Ireland is the easiest for U.S. lawyers to work
with, as legal traditions and language are closer than on the continent ...
and especially now after (formal) Brexit the choice is simpler ...

------
jmnicolas
What's up with the F word being liberally used in the article ? oO

~~~
parliament32
Liberally? It appears twice, I honestly didn't even notice first read-through.

------
classified
Comments from FB are boatloads of bullshit, as expected. How nice to see that
not everybody lets themselves get fucked over by them as a matter of course,
like in the US. Cheers to Ireland.

~~~
sneak
The only people being fucked over here are consumers who are being denied free
choice in the list of services they might voluntarily use.

I hate surveillance as much as anyone, but it's hard to see how it might be a
good thing that someone's website launch is being censored by the state.

~~~
AlexandrB
I hate pollution as much as anyone but it’s hard to see how it might be a good
thing that someone’s paper mill launch is being censored by the state.

I hate cancer as much as anyone, but it’s hard to see how it might be a good
thing that someone’s tobacco advertising is being censored by the state.

I hate sex trafficking as much as anyone, but it’s hard to see how it might be
a good thing that someone’s Russian bride catalog launch is being censored by
the state.

——

I guess my point is that your broad objection to government interference is
completely meritless without considering the specific harms and benefits under
discussion. The problem with surveillance is that the harms are distributed
and delayed. Meanwhile Facebook does everything it can to obfuscate what these
harms might even be.

~~~
logicchains
>The problem with surveillance is that the harms are distributed and delayed.
Meanwhile Facebook does everything it can to obfuscate what these harms might
even be.

The harms of regulation are also distributed and delayed. The Backpage.com sex
workers who were selling their services online have to go back to the danger
of working the streets as a consequence of new online sex trafficing laws.
People previously buying drugs safely online now have to go back to the
streets, with dangerous dealers and worse infrastructure for testing drug
safety. GDP grows a little slower, nobody notices for a while, until a couple
decades later the standards of living in that country are lower than their
neighbours and what they could have otherwise been. Some people miss out on
meeting the love of their life who they might otherwise have met on Facebook
Dating.

It's not enough to consider the benefits and harms of the thing you're
considering banning, you also need to consider the harms of the ban itself,
and of creating the political infrastructure to enforce the ban, that could be
turned against you the moment a far-right government wins an election (may I
remind you that the People's National Front won 33% of the vote at the last
French election).

~~~
throwawayhhakdl
The harm of not allowing Facebook dating while it fails to meet privacy
regulations is that people have to use alternative dating services that do
meet privacy regulations.

Social harm: nothing.

The implication that any government ban is bad, because fascists, is silly.
The concept that some bans have net negative consequences is fine, but there
is nothing to suggest that is the case here.

------
paulie_a
I am on several dating apps and there is now way in hell I would ever use
Facebook dating. It used to be called the poke function anyways.

------
unnouinceput
It's Facebook after all, so of course there is no privacy there. Imagine using
this service and with their total lack of privacy and having your preferences
spilled out. Same as putting them on a billboard.

~~~
jka
What could be worse is if the same patterns and culture of allowing targeting
and monetization carry over to Facebook Dating from the rest of the Facebook
platform and organization.

Combined with romance scams[0], it seems possible that Facebook Dating would
provide narcissists, manipulators and fraudsters with a lucrative marketplace
to operate in.

[0] -
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51459517](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51459517)

~~~
Fernicia
This is basically a Nigerian prince fraud. What's new?

------
6510
I got this sinister mental picture of a facebook human farming department
trying to add a breeding sub div.

------
timwaagh
I'm personally thinking it's sad such resources and effort are expended over
something as frivolous as a dating app. If there are significant
irregularities it's better to just fine them a couple of billion later. Better
for the wallet, too.

~~~
cstross
Not better for anyone who ends up being stalked and/or raped as a result of a
badly monitored/regulated dating app, though.

There's a public safety issue here: dating requires interpersonal negotiation
for personal intimacy with consent, which in turn implies that a dating app
needs to be "safe space". Facebook is notorious for leaking personal
information to third parties (typically but not always advertisers). I have no
knowledge of _specific_ risks associated with Facebook's dating app, but the
precautionary principle should apply in those cases where personal safety is
at risk, and the sheer scale on which Facebook operates means that a dating
app backed by the big F needs oversight.

Luckily, GDPR FTW.

------
ecmascript
It feels wierd to read an american article that uses word like 'fuck you' and
'fucked up'. I kind of like the brutal honesty of the word usage.

------
ipsi
Slight tangent, but it seems that TechCrunch are also quite bad at privacy -
following the link initially redirects to
[https://guce.techcrunch.com/consent?brandType=nonEU&done=htt...](https://guce.techcrunch.com/consent?brandType=nonEU&done=https%3A%2F%2Ftechcrunch%2Ecom%2F2020%2F02%2F13%2Ffacebook%2Ddating%2Dlaunch%2Dblocked%2Din%2Deurope%2Dafter%2Dit%2Dfails%2Dto%2Dshow%2Dprivacy%2Dworkings%2F&gcrumb={{CRUMB})}
with a 307, which, when followed redirects to
[https://guce.advertising.com/collectIdentifiers?sessionId=3_...](https://guce.advertising.com/collectIdentifiers?sessionId=3_cc-
session_{{GUID})} with a 302.

I like that the "consent" URL doesn't actually ask for consent - it just
immediately redirects to "collect identifiers" \- it's possible they already
assume they have my consent, but since this was checked with a cookie-less
cURL command, that seems unlikely. Since my adblocker is blocking the
guce.advertising.com domain, I guess I don't get to visit TechCrunch.

~~~
tomger
Another post where the top part of the thread is a tangent/unrelated to the
post. This is becoming common on HN and I don’t find it helpful.

~~~
corentin88
Totally agree. It’s especially annoying because it’s the top thread.

~~~
Narishma
It's the top thread because people find it interesting. If you don't, just
click the [-] and it will close the whole thread.

------
bouke
Website hijacks my back button in Safari. Is there something that can be done
to prevent this?

~~~
dao-
I know we (Mozilla) are working on fixing this in Firefox:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1515073](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1515073)

You may want to check Apple's bug tracker, they likely have an open issue on
this already.

~~~
heartbeats
It would be a better idea to block ads served from such sites, or to even send
punitive requests.

~~~
dao-
It's possible Firefox already does that via its enabled-by-default tracking
protection. At least I don't seem to have an issue with the back button here.

~~~
heartbeats
Fixing the bug only fixes it for Firefox users, but disincentivizing it fixes
it for everyone.

For me, uMatrix blocks it; it redirects through
[https://guce.advertising.com/collectIdentifiers](https://guce.advertising.com/collectIdentifiers).
I could disable it or go through IA or whatever, but I really haven't the
patience to deal with these websites.

------
magwa101
Finally, some sanity applied.

------
cco
Are they going after the 40+ dating market? Surely the dating app demographic
isn't on Facebook anymore, though maybe Facebook is still popular in the 18-30
age range in Europe? I just don't know.

~~~
Milner08
In the UK its certainly not popular with the late 20's crowd. There are still
some people hanging on in there but most people seem to have (thankfully)
given up on it for anything other than messages and the occasional event.

------
stared
There are various takes on that, which of course depend on values each person
(and country) considers as the most important.

In my personal opinion, Europe (in which I live) as an "Amish bias" [1], i.e.
by default being more cautious about introducing new technologies. I am
already annoyed by the constant cookie pop-ups that significantly affect my
browsing experience but on mobile.

Yes, there are risks with all technologies. But with the current mindset,
Europe is setting itself way back comparing to the USA... which is much more
cautious than China. Or in other words, Europe sets itself to be the World's
calm countryside, in which people live as they used to.

Some (maybe even the majority) may like it. Personally, I am asking myself
from time to time - when it is time to move to Asia.

[1] [https://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-
hackers-a/](https://kk.org/thetechnium/amish-hackers-a/)

~~~
chunkyslink
Being concerned about privacy is not an Amish Bias, it means our citizens are
less likely to be abused by some tech company.

~~~
Cthulhu_
And by extension a government, see the Nazis (invoking Godwin's Law here), but
also the Snowden revelations - you can safely assume the NSA and co have
access to all data held by the big tech companies. If Trump or his even more
extreme successors decide that a certain demographic needs to be rounded up,
they can requisition a dataset from Facebook and they'd have the list of
people matching that description. Combine that with the military + the
militarization of the US' police force and you realize you're only one
executive order away from genocide. And I don't know if the world will go to
war with the US over that.

~~~
logicchains
So the problem with Facebook is that powerful governments might use their data
to do horrible things, and the solution is to give governments even more power
over our lives by letting them dictate what sites we're allowed to visit? If
there wasn't so much of this "oh no, a problem, better get the government to
solve it" thinking in the first place, the US government would never have
gotten as powerful as it has.

~~~
lagadu
> "oh no, a problem, better get the government to solve it"

Erm, that's exactly why we have governments: to solve society-level problems.

~~~
logicchains
Yes but governments also cause problems, and if they get big enough the cure
can be worse than the disease. E.g. if all governments in Europe had not had
the power to override citizens' freedom of choice by drafting them and taking
their factories to make bombs, there'd have been no WW1, saving tens of
millions of lives. If Russian and Chinese governments in the 20th century had
not had the power to override their citizen's freedom of choice and
expropriate their property, Stalin would not have been able to conduct his
purges, Mao would not have been able to conduct his great leap forward, the
great famine would have been avoided, saving close to a hundred million lives.

As the quote goes, "A government big enough to give you everything you want,
is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.". People
think "oh it couldn't happen here"; well that's what people in Germany thought
in the 1930s.

------
epixcz
EU doesn't want me to find a girl, how sad :/ still thinks this could be much
more usable than what become of Tinder, especially when there is no filters,
which when you live near border could be sometimes really bad. Not that I have
something against other nations, it's just convenient to look only for locals.

