Policy Observatory
The EU's competition authorities on Friday gave social media site Facebook the green light to complete its €15bn takeover of mobile messaging startup WhatsApp.
The company is exploring creating online “support communities” that would connect Facebook users suffering from various ailments. A small team is also considering new “preventative care” applications that would help people improve their lifestyles.
Unbeknown to users, Facebook had tampered with the news feeds of nearly 700,000 people, showing them an abnormally low number of either positive or negative posts. The experiment aimed to determine whether the company could alter the emotional state of its users.
When it comes to Facebook’s real names policy, it’s really clear—something needs to change. Over the last few weeks, we’ve joined dozens of advocates in saying so. And in a meeting with LGBTQ and digital rights advocates, Facebook agreed. Of course, admitting there’s a problem is always the first step towards a solution. But what’s not clear is what that solution will be.
Facebook expanded its ever-growing advertising and tracking reach this week with new integration between the giant social network and Atlas, an advertising platform it purchased from Microsoft. The company now lets advertisers target you across all of your devices and on participating websites, based on characteristics from your Facebook profile such as age, gender, and location. It will also attempt to track the products you buy both online and off, in order to measure the ads' effects on our purchases.
The judgment of the Court of Justice of European Union (CJEU) of 13 May 2014 Google Spain SL and Google Inc. v Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) and Mario Costeja González (C-131/12) sets a milestone for EU data protection in respect of search engines and, more generally, in the online world.
It grants the possibility to data subjects to request to search engines, under certain conditions, the delisting of links appearing in the search results based on a person’s name.
On Wednesday 26 November, the European data protection authorities assembled in the Article 29 Working Party (WP29) have adopted guidelines on the implementation of the CJEU’s judgment. These guidelines contain the common interpretation of the ruling as well as the common criteria to be used by the data
protection authorities when addressing complaints.