Facebook Data Collection Under Fire Again 49
JohnBert writes "A German privacy protection authority is calling on organizations there to close their Facebook fan pages and remove the social networking site's 'Like' button from their websites, arguing that Facebook harvests data in violation of German and European Union law. The Independent Centre for Privacy Protection (ULD), the privacy protection agency for the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, issued a news release on Friday saying Facebook builds a broad, individualized profile for people who view Facebook content on third-party websites. Data is sent back to Facebook's servers in the U.S., which the agency alleges violates the German Telemedia Act, the German Federal Data Protection Act and the Data Protection Act of Schleswig-Holstein. The agency alleges the data is held by Facebook for two years, and wants website owners in the state to remove links to Facebook by the end of next month or possibly face a fine."
Get a proxy (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been running a web proxy at home for awhile now and the more I review the logs, the more I see that the entire WWW is a massive data collection engine. Trying to keep up with blocks is like playing whack-a-mole (albeit similarly satisfying).
I agree with their call to action to have FaceBook links removed, but I'd also add that this is only the tip of the iceberg.