Not only will #Threads not be launching in the EU (presumably because it'll be sucking up so much personal data that they can't make it GDPR compliant), but now the The European Court of Justice has agreed with Germany’s anti-cartel watchdog that Meta can't share harvested personal data between Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. That ruling will also apply to Threads.
A great day for consumer protections.
https://www.thelocal.com/20230704/eu-court-deals-blow-to-meta-in-german-data-case/ #Meta
I'm seeing articles like this one claim the reason for the non-EU launch is the EU's Digital Markets Act, not GDPR, but I'm not sure the source on that. As far as I can tell, Meta haven't stated their reasons, and the Irish Data Protection Commission haven't blocked anything yet (Ireland because that's where Meta's European office is). The DMA is the act stopping Meta combining data from different platforms.
Please update me if you see any clarifications on the matter!
Similarly interesting, the Court stressed that data protection and access to personal data are crucial factors for #competition in digital markets (Para 51).
Breaches against the #GDPR can be considered by competition authorities when assessing the abuse of a dominant position under EU Law (Para 48).
@[email protected] Similarly interesting, the Court stressed that data protection and access to personal data are crucial factors for #competition in digital markets (Para 51). Breaches against the #GDPR can be considered by competition authorities when assessing the abuse of a dominant position under EU Law (Para 48). https://curia.europa.eu/juris/documents.jsf?num=C-252/21
@Quantillion
What galls me is that even sensitive professions such as doctors use a 'professional account' on WhatsApp. Talk about keeping patient data private.
Many hospitals and blood labs use Google services in the Netherlands. It's rampant.
@pascaline @Quantillion I mean the patient data itself is private – Whatsapp aren't reading your messages – but they do know that you're talking to a doctor, and when. In any case I completely agree, public services shouldn't be using proprietary, closed systems.
I was just reading this, it's for universities but many of the points apply to the public sector also https://netzpolitik.org/2023/a-call-to-action-universities-of-the-world-into-the-fediverse/. Good read.
While there is a lot of discussion about new Twitter alternatives and the relevance of journalists and other critical groups of users, the potential of university-based Fediverse instances has hardly been addressed. It is high time for universities to get involved in the Fediverse. This is a call to action.
@pascaline brb, gonna go down to the Diakonessenhuis and tell anyone who'll listen about Peertube 🤓
@Brendanjones 😎👍👍👍 Good to have GDPR intercepting the greedy grifting data krakens!
#EU #GDPR #MetaThreads #Meta #Threads #DataKrakens #DataHarvesting
@Brendanjones Wasn’t the timeline the other way round? The German case was a week ago, so Meta‘s decision not to launch threads is probably following that ruling. When using WhatsApp (then) Facebook agreed to not share data which they then did nonetheless. In view of the cases it makes sense for them to now be more careful. These might well be practical challenges to comply more carefully and show some goodwill.
It’s messy, but it’s a technical and legal mess, not morally.
@Brendanjones Sure, I'm speculating here, hence "probably."
And sorry if I overlooked something, I can just see one post for whatever reason.
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