Austria's highest court mulls class action status for Schrems v Facebook

Austria's highest court is poised to consider whether the Schrems vs Facebook case should be granted class-action status. Complainant Max Schrems, who has tirelessly campaigned against Facebook's alleged privacy violations, said that the claims of thousands of others needed to be heard in court. "It would not make a lot of …

[nsld]

Could get interesting

Especially after the Belgian Data Protection ruling last week with the €350,000 per day penalty that Facebook got over the tracking of people without consent.

[g e]

Perhaps it's a cunning plan

Seeing as most people paid more tax than Facebook last year, perhaps the govt's have found a ruse to get a shitload of it back whilst blaming it on the NSA...

[Your alien overlord - fear me]

Is this really just Max's end of term dissitation/project for his degree? If so, hats off to you.

[RLGL]

If you don't like the privacy terms, DON'T USE FACEBOOK. Very simple, no hassle

[Tom 38]

You don't have to use Facebook to be used by Facebook.

[SImon Hobson]

> If you don't like the privacy terms, DON'T USE FACEBOOK.

FAIL

You should try reading just a little about the case and about Farcebook. I'm watching developments here while I decide what to do. I do not use Farcebook, but I know for a fact that they are collecting and using information about me (because I know other users idiots mention me in posts and tag me in photos etc*. And in contravention of EU law, it's now clear that Farcebook exports that data to the USA.

And then there's the tracking tech that tracks users across different websites - as in the site only needs to have their tracking tech (aka the "Like" button), I don't need to click it. So without me actually providing any information, and most definitely without any consent whatsoever, it's probably safe to say that Farcebook has built up a fairly detailed profile of me. That alone is illegal under EU law, exporting it to the USA makes it doubly illegal.

* I assume at least one idiot has uploaded their address book - so there's probably my name, address, phone numbers, and email addresses. Add a couple more and they can link my home and work stuff, then link me to the idiots at work who do use Farcebook, and so on and so on.

[Anonymous Coward]

As Groucho once said.

I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.