Archive for August 2011

Germany: “Remove Facebook Like”!

remove like facebook The data protection agencies for the German state Schleswig-Holtstein ordered Facebook today (8/19/2011) to remove the LIKE BUTTON („Gefällt mir“-Button) from its websites citing the violation of three different consumer protection laws.

Schleswig-Holstein’s data-protection commissioner, Thilo Wechert, says that an analysis from his office shows that Facebook builds profiles of both users and non-users with data collected by the Like button, this would violate German and European data protection laws. Facebook faces fines of EURO 50,000 per violation if the LIKE buttons are not removed by the end of September.

My first gig (while still in law school) was to teach these laws to call centers of ISPs and Telecommunication companies. Ah .. the memories 😉

 

 

Facebook Status: SHUT DOWN!

In a YouTube video uploaded on July 16th 2011 the hacker group Anonymous anounced that it will take down Facebook November 5th 2011. Whereas the authenticity of the video has not been confirmed it might be a good idea to back up anything you have uploaded to Facebook.

“Facebook has been selling information to government agencies and giving clandestine access to information security firms so they can spy on people all around the world,” the Anonymous message, titled “Operation Facebook” claims. It was uploaded on July 16, but it only began circulating widely around the web this week. You can listen to it above.

“Everything you do on Facebook stays on Facebook regardless of your privacy settings, and deleting your account is impossible,” the statement continues. “Even if you delete your account, all of your personal info stays on Facebook and can be recovered at any time. Changing the privacy settings to make your account more private is also a delusion. Facebook knows more about you than your family. … You are not safe from them nor from any government. One day you will look back on this and realize what we have done here is right. Think for awhile and prepare for a day that will go down in history: Nov. 5, 2011.”