Facebook vs. Germany
October 25, 2011
In a Monday meeting with the Germany's new media parliamentary sub-committee, officials from Facebook and Google tried to reassure lawmakers that the companies were in compliance with German and European privacy and data protection laws.
German data protection officials argued that the companies should be subject to new, updated legislation. However, Germany's interior ministry said it preferred industry-wide self-regulation rather than new laws.
"We are pleased that the new media sub-committee of the German [parliament] is interested in the issue and felt that their meeting today was helpful," a Facebook spokesperson said in an e-mail sent to Deutsche Welle.
But other parliamentarians said that Facebook has not been very forthright when responding to criticisms coming from Germany.
"This is not reasonable dialogue, if there is a contact in Ireland, who comes every few weeks to Germany," said Thomas Jarzombek, German MP and member of the sub-committee.
Schleswig-Holstein officials take Facebook to task
Thilo Weichert, the commissioner of the Independent Centre for Privacy Protection (ULD) in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, who also attended the meeting, has gone after Facebook since August. He says that "10-15" websites operating in his state use Facebook fan pages and "like" buttons in a way that is incompatible with German and European data protection law.
He alleges that Facebook collects cookies and other data from non-Facebook members when visiting sites that have the Facebook "like" button on them.
The data protection agency could hit websites operating in Schleswig-Holstein with fines worth up to 50,000 euros ($72,000) if they continue to use the "like" button or manage fan pages on Facebook's website. Weichert said during the hearing that his office would "apply appropriate actions" beginning in November, if these companies have not responded.
German tech website Heise.de proposed a "two-click solution" in September, the first of which would signal that the user wants to communicate with a site like Facebook, while the second would activate the actual "like" function.
When this was brought up in the committee hearing, Richard Allan, Facebook's director of policy in Europe, dismissed this idea.
"We believe that this solution would lead to a dead page," he said.
ULD head Thilo Weichert also argued for further new legislation that would supersede what he views as inadequate laws that date back to the 1990s.
"I hope the [German parliament] will take action and begin with necessary legislation concerning privacy and Internet," he told Deutsche Welle on Tuesday.
"The problem is that Facebook doesn't give enough information about how they are dealing with personalized data concerning the members and non-members of Facebook community," he said, adding that this strategy was an "indirect" way of going after Facebook.
Facebook maintains innocence
But the California-based social network said that it disagreed with the ULD's assesment.
"We believe our service is consistent with European data protection law and we reiterated our strong disagreement with the position of the ULD on the legality of German organizations using our service," Facebook's e-mail continued.
"We remain very concerned that the ULD's position would create serious difficulties for organizations in Germany in using a broad range of popular Internet services, putting them at a huge disadvantage, and the ULD's position is therefore of wider significance for German society."
Facebook in particular has come under increased scrutiny from various corners of Europe. Late last month, an Austrian law student inspired users to inundate Facebook's international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland with "access requests" for user data. Max Schrems, the law student, and 21 other students have filed a formal complaint with the Irish Data Protection Commissioner's office alleging that Facebook violates Irish and European law.
The social network giant is facing an imminent privacy audit by Irish authorities and could be fined up to 100,000 euros.
"The audit will begin this week," said Lisa McGann, a compliance officer at the Irish Data Protection Commissioner's office, in an interview with Deutsche Welle. "Our approach is to focus on compliance with data protection acts."
Author: Cyrus Farivar
Editor: Sam Edmonds