Politics brings out true depth of Facebook 'friending'

[green for victory]

10. What does the data that Facebook collects after about 1 year of "membership" look like?

(see the details: http://www.europe-v-facebook.org/EN/Data_Pool/data_pool.html)

Austrian student takes on Facebook over privacy

In this photo taken Monday, Oct. 10, 2011, Austrian student Max Schrems holds files about his activities on his Facebook account that Facebook handed over to him, in Vienna, Austria. Schrems wasn't quite sure what information about himself Facebook would send him after he filed a request with the social networking giant to receive his personal data, as is required under European law.

It certainly wasn't the stack of 1,222 pages worth on a CD that inspired him to launch an online campaign aimed at forcing the social media behemoth to abide by European data privacy laws _ something the Palo Alto, California-based company insists it already does. Since August, some 350,000 people have visited the site, dubbed "Europe vs. Facebook," and flooded Facebook's European branch, based in Ireland, with requests for their personal data. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak)

One of Schrems' main complaints with Facebook, he says, is that company retains information far longer than allowed under European law, which it most cases is limited to a few months.

"I wondered, what are they doing with my data?" Schrems said, sitting with his laptop in a Viennese coffee house. "I thought through everything that one can do with that amount of information, all the marketing that is possible."

Under European law, consumers have the right to request a record of the personal information held by a company. The law further stipulates that to retain data beyond the limit of several months, a company must have a reason to do so...(more)

http://phys.org/news/2011-10-austrian-student-facebook-privacy.html

see also: http://www.europe-v-facebook.org/