Kavitha Gupta's blog

In a judgement of 9 November 2015, the President of the Court of First Instance in Brussels, Belgium, ordered Facebook Inc., Facebook Ireland Limited and Facebook Belgium SPRL in summary proceedings to cease registering via cookies and social plug-ins which websites internet users from Belgium who do not have a Facebook account visit. The order, which has been demanded by the Belgian Privacy Commission in a writ of summons of 10 June 2015, enters into force 48 hours after the Privacy Commission will officially serve the judgment to Facebook. If Facebook does not comply with the order, it will have to pay a penalty of 250,000 EUR per day of non-compliance. The order remains in force, even if Facebook appeals the judgement. In summary, the Court rules as follows: 1. Belgian data protection law applies and Belgian courts have jurisdiction First, the Court finds that Belgian data protection law applies and that Belgian courts have jurisdiction. Facebook argued that it has to comp...

World’s Top Tech Companies Get Failing Grade on Privacy The Guardian reports that, “according to the most comprehensive assessment to date of their user agreement policies,” the world’s biggest tech companies are not protecting their users’ privacy and freedom of expression. Companies from the U.S., Europe and Asia all received failing grades from a project known as Ranking Digital Rights. None of the companies reviewed offered users appropriate information on privacy and censorship, the New America Foundation think tank survey stated. “There are no ‘winners,’” the group said, adding, “Even companies in the lead are falling short.” Meanwhile, a separate report has found that nine out of 10 of the Internet’s top websites are leaking user data . University of Pennsylvania privacy researcher Tim Libert published the peer-reviewed report , which sought to quantify all the “privacy compromising mechanisms” on the world’s most popular websites. http://www.theguardian.com/technolo...