Can we pass a law like that here? I normally do not like government getting involved in private industry but fb operates like an unregistered utility anyway.
Given the meme ban, the link tax, and what Bertelsmann Arvato is doing for Facebook in Europe I find it interesting that they’re having kittens about this.
Since FB was given to Zuck to achieve the DARPA “Information Awareness Office” goals of total information gathering to shunt around Constitutional restrictions on the government spying on its own system, the proposed data sharing restriction would remove FB’s whole reason for existence.
Good for the EU.
You see ALL these big Internet companies are NOT in business to serve YOU. You are not their customers. They don’t give a dam about you. You are - your data is - the product they produce for their customers - those in the business of buying your data; whether for advertising or any other purpose. Facebook, Google et al are in the business of packaging YOU for sale - your data, in different sets of bits and pieces to please different customers. They - Facebook at al - exists for those customers, NOT you.
Can such outfits exist without selling your data?
Does FreeRepublic exist without selling your data? Yes. Do many paid-subscription sites exist without selling your data? Yes.
There’s your answer.
It is not that a Goggle or Facebook cannot exist without being in the real business of selling your data. It is only that they don’t want to exist that way, that that is not the particular business model they want.
Frankly, I think it is a very bad business model for all.