With friends like Facebook…
Here's an interesting coincidence. Last week, the European commission announced plans for a "comprehensive review" of the EU's 1995 data protection rules "to strengthen online privacy rights" and "boost Europe's digital economy". The reforms include "a right to be forgotten", which will, the commission claims, "help people better manage data protection risks online" and enable them to "delete their data if there are no legitimate grounds for retaining it".
In the same week, Facebook made this announcement on its official blog: "Last year we introduced timeline, a new kind of profile that lets you highlight the photos, posts and life events that help you tell your story. Over the next few weeks, everyone will get timeline. When you get timeline, you'll have seven days to preview what's there now. This gives you a chance to add or hide whatever you want before anyone else sees it." Note the authoritarian tone: "Everyone will get timeline." Translation: you'll get it whether you like it or not. We will return to this later.
Now you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see that there's a serious collision ahead between the European commission and a powerful US company that is planning an IPO. And guess what? Facebook got its retaliation in first. The day before the commission made its announcement, Facebook's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, gave a speech to a technology conference in Munich. Her menacing subtext was neatly summarised by the New York Times thus: "Concerned about privacy? Maybe you should be concerned about the economy instead." Translation: mess with us, Eurotrash, and we'll screw you.
Sandberg's speech was revealing because it exposes the line of argument that Google, Facebook, et al will use to undermine public authorities that seek to control their freedom to exploit their users' identities and abuse their privacy. The argument is that internet companies create lots of jobs and are good for the economy and European governments shouldn't stand in their way.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/29/facebook-data-privacy-rights-regulation
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