France gives WhatsApp a month to get slurps in order or face fine The French information watchdog has told WhatsApp it has a month to comply with data protection laws, or risk being fined. European data protection agencies have become increasingly frustrated with the slurp-happy attitude of the messaging app and parent company Facebook since its privacy policy changed last summer. The …
Out of interest, what could France do if a US company, which is hosted in the US and used by millions of French citizens decides to give the French government the finger ?
Its not going to bock WhatsApp as its citizens would throw a wobbly, so what could France actually do except go to court and a US corporation could ignore them as the company is not based or hosted in France ?
Always wondered ....
"It's not going to block WhatsApp as its citizens would throw a wobbly".
Why not, everyone would just fire up Telegram or an alternative and it would be business as usual, except for Zuckerbeg..
I, for one, am all for this, with a little bit of luck it might start the ball rolling and start to put an end to all the hidden and unwanted Dataslurping. Hopefully Google and Microsoft will be next.
If I have to pays a couple of bucks thereafter for Whatsapp that's ok with me.
Vive la CNIL...
Don't block Whatsapp....block advertising content from Facebook at a national level.
I reckon it would take about...Oooo 30 seconds for Facebook to change their mind....and if they decide to appeal against this action, let them enjoy the speed of the court system.
As already alluded to by my fellow commentards, the action the French can take is against any company doing business in France. Fine them (i.e. Facebook as well) if they don't pay then no business in France or with French advertising agencies. And money speaks loud and clear in the USA...
"Out of interest, what could France do if a US company, which is hosted in the US and used by millions of French citizens decides to give the French government the finger ?"
Well seize their EU assets (for instance several valuable datacentres for a start) and / or advertising revenue. And ultimately stop them trading in the EU, which after all is a much larger market than the US both in terms of GDP and in terms of population...
> Well seize their EU assets ...
I seem to recall that because of Facebook's tax shenanigans their global, non-US revenues go via Ireland (in the EU). I suppose this helps collecting fines and seizing considerable assets. Ultimately I suppose Facebook's Irish subsidiaries through which the global revenue goes could be seized with the effect that said revenue gets permanently seized (the contractual arrangements between Facebook and the subsidiaries created for tax avoidance would surely stay in effect after the seizure?).
Since the US regularly fines companies headquartered in other countries, I wonder how it comes at a surprise that those other countries can do the same to US-based companies. Is there an unconscious assumption here that somehow, everything US is untouchable, because...?
You miss the point (which was a bit tongue and cheek). I wanted to raise the idea of looking at other ways to bring Facebook into line. Clearly, if Advertisers ever shun the platform its game over.. We know the Russian and Cambridge-Analytics behavioral Ads shouldn't have happened... So maybe there's a way to punish rogue operators. If only by having cleverer algos to block them and more regulation / oversight over social media pre-election.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
