Belgium sues Facebook over privacy. Yes, it has come to that and it seems that the situation is pretty serious for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and its peers.  What happened ?

It seems that the moment that Facebook announced their new privacy policy that was launched at the end of January, this year, Belgium’s Commission for the Protection of Privacy took a stand and asked for some clarifications. As Facebook refused to do so, because they have their headquarters in Europe and thus it falls under the under the jurisdiction of Irish laws.

So the Belgians have issued a report stating that Facebook is absolutely disregarding European and Belgian legislation. As a consequence, Facebook representatives replied that they need not account to any Belgian authority, so long story short, they were sued. Willem Debeuckelaere, chair of the Belgian commission was very crossed about the situation and declared that the fact the Facebook refuses to acknowledge their authority and accept any of their recommendations cannot be tolerated in any way.

Conclusively, there was a subpoena  issued for Facebook US, Belgium and Ireland.

One of the main reasons for Belgians’ dissatisfaction was the fact the “Like” button was also present as a Facebook extension on many other sites, that records the activity of users, as well as many other aspects regarding security and the collection of data that the users introduced. The express concern included other data that are inherently deduced from people’s activity on various sites, even that of those which are not Facebook users. The people are not actually aware of this and they were not prompted to give their direct consent, and that is illegal in Belgium.

Facebook defended itself claiming that Facebook does not use information in the suggested way, neither does it have any malicious intent regarding all this data management. One reason why Facebook has headquarters in Ireland is that the taxes are lower and also its regulations are much more permissive and protect their business throughout the European Union.  The future of this legal case in unsure at the moment, but  the entire world is categorically waiting to see what the outcome will be.

 

Image source: Telegraph.co.uk