Facebook privacy policy violates European law, says report

Facebook's privacy policy is in breach of European law, a report commissioned by the Belgian Data Protection Authority concluded on Monday. "Facebook’s opt-out system for advertising does not meet the requirements for legally valid consent," said the report by the Centre of Interdisciplinary Law and ICT and Intellectual …

[Big_Ted]

Well colour me shocked

Facebook doing what it wants without reguard to users rights etc I would never have expected that.

One of the many reasons I never use it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Require explicit opt-in - the only approach that makes any sense at all for all social networking.

[Anonymous Coward]

@AC

You sign up - you opt-in. Don't want the crap don't use it.

Want to use it then at least get to know what you're agreeing to. That's what makes sense, not disavowing your personal responsibility and blaming someone else because you're so caught up in the social media frenzy you can't think for yourself.

[Jan Hargreaves]

Re: @AC

I've never signed up to Facebook. But I know they have pictures of me on the site. So they must have a profile of me on there. Do tell me how I opt out then, given that I never agreed to their terms.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: @AC @Jan Hargreaves

Woah, paranoid or what. Someone posted a picture of you and now you're being stalked by facebook. Do you get targetted advertising, do they tag your photo to what you like or have ordered online. No, I didn't thinkk so. I'd suggest you un-friend in real life whoever posted the picture.

[Beachrider]

You could just stop using Facebook...

Things like Facebook are driven from Advertizement revenue. If the ADs are a problem, you could just stop using it. That works well for the TOR network, doesn't it?

[Kevin Davidson]

Re: You could just stop using Facebook...

Doesn't really help. If people who know you have a Facebook account, then you'll already have a hidden shadow profile populated with most of your personal and contact data. That seems like more of a problem - there's no mechanism for checking this, correcting it or deleting it.

And it will get updated with every web page you view that has a Facebook widget.

[Stoneshop]

Re: You could just stop using Facebook...

And it will get updated with every web page you view that has a Facebook widget.

Except that on my machines those FB widgets will find themselves trying to connect to 0.0.0.0. And if that b0rks the page, then sod that.