Facebook faces prospect of 'devastating' data transfer ban after Irish ruling

[groundloop]

Source: Reuters

Ireland’s data regulator can resume a probe that may trigger a ban on Facebook’s transatlantic data transfers, the High Court ruled on Friday, raising the prospect of a stoppage that the company warns would have a devastating impact on its business.

The case stems from EU concerns that U.S. government surveillance may not respect the privacy rights of EU citizens when their personal data is sent to the United States for commercial use.

Ireland's Data Protection Commissioner (DPC), Facebook's lead regulator in the European Union, launched an inquiry in August and issued a provisional order that the main mechanism Facebook uses to transfer EU user data to the United States "cannot in practice be used".

Facebook had challenged both the inquiry and the Preliminary Draft Decision (PDD), saying they threatened "devastating" and "irreversible" consequences for its business, which relies on processing user data to serve targeted online ads.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/business/legal/facebook-data-transfer-ruling-irish-court-due-friday-2021-05-14/

[Thomas Hurt]

1. FB: My Clicks! The bastards are stealing my clicks!

[groundloop]

2. Poor poor zuckerberg might lose a little bit of income if he can't spy on Europeans.

[FakeNoose]

3. Zuckerberg spies on Europeans and then he sells the data to Europeans

He makes money both ways, because advertisers pay him to display their ads to Europeans while he's snatching their data.

I don't get it, we Americans seem to not care much when Facebook steals and sells our data.

[jaxexpat]

5. Americans have a death wish relationship with personal responsibility.

[Pinback]

11. I sure as hell care

which is why I don't use Facebook or Google products.

Unfortunately I'm in the minority of those who give a hoot.

[Comfortably_Numb]

4. Damn I hope this kneecaps fuckerberg's money stream.

[samsingh]

6. let it be so

[ffr]

7. Screw Facebook!

Let it go the way of MySpace.

[Scalded Nun]

8. Just because this country doesn't give a shit about personal privacy and identity

does not mean the rest of the world shouldn't either.

If Facebook cannot survive because they are not allowed to abuse their membership then they should not survive.

Funny, it seems to me that the GDPR has not killed commerce in Europe.

[paleotn]

9. Fact is, Facebook isn't a social media company.

It's a data extracting company. That's all it's ever been.

[Marrah_Goodman]

10. By devastating they mean the owners will make less billions.

Cry me a river.

[Drum]

12. Is Ireland on-of-few/the-only English speaking member of the EU now? nt

[monkeyman1]

13. poor trash book !!! not !!

[VarryOn]

14. I shut my account three years ago. They lost me...

When I learned they tracked my non-FB activity.

I quit Twitter last year after several stories of peoples' years-old tweets coming to light. Peoples' online activities should be ephemeral (short-lived). I'm flabbergasted tweets from years ago are saved by Twitter.

The law should be that social media companies delete activity after six months.