North German State bans websites from using Facebook ‘Like’ plug-in

By Jeff Hughes August 19, 2011

The northernmost German State of Schleswig-Holstein says they’re banning Facebook. All institutions are being told to shut down Facebook fan pages and to remove the ‘Like’ plug-in from their websites by the end of next month.

According to a statement from Schleswig-Holstein’s Data Protection Commissioner’s Office (Independent Centre for Privacy Protection-ULD), these Facebook features are supposedly in violation of the German Telemdia ACT (TMG) and the country’s Federal Data Protection Act. The ULD says they have a problem with German website traffic data being sent over to the USA.

The main claim is that anyone who uses a plug-in will be tracked by Facebook for two years. The State’s office says that this profiling of users without choice infringes on Europe’s data protection law. Facebook conditions of use and privacy statements supposedly fall short of the Germany’s legal requirements regarding notice and privacy consent.

The State is quite serious about this matter as they are giving website owners only until the end of September this year to comply. Any stragglers can look forward to fines of up to 50,000 euros.

The head of the ULD Thilo Weichert, said, “Our current call is only the beginning of a continuing privacy impact analysis of Facebook applications…Nobody should claim that there are no alternatives; there are European and other social media available that take the protection of privacy rights of Internet users far more serious.”

Jeff Jarvis points out on buzzmachine that Facebook does harvest IP information, but all this technical data is deleted within the normal industry standard of 90 days. Jarvis further notes that Facebook’s European spokesman, Stefano Hesse, has had no complaints from Weichert’s Hamburg conterpart as far as privacy issues.

This isn’t the first time Facebook has run afoul of German privacy laws. Earlier this month Facebook was asked to stop running facial recognition on German users without consent.

Topics

Web
Facebook

Former Digital Trends Contributor

I'm a SF Bay Area-based writer/ninja that loves anything geek, tech, comic, social media or gaming-related.

Social Media

Bluesky barrels toward 1 million new sign-ups in a day

Social media app Bluesky has picked nearly a million new users just a day after exiting its invitation-only beta and opening to everyone.

In a post on its main rival -- X (formerly Twitter) -- Bluesky shared a chart showing a sudden boost in usage on the app, which can now be downloaded for free for iPhone and Android devices.

Computing

How to make a GIF from a YouTube video

woman sitting and using laptop

Sometimes, whether you're chatting with friends or posting on social media, words just aren't enough -- you need a GIF to fully convey your feelings. If there's a moment from a YouTube video that you want to snip into a GIF, the good news is that you don't need complex software to so it. There are now a bunch of ways to make a GIF from a YouTube video right in your browser.

If you want to use desktop software like Photoshop to make a GIF, then you'll need to download the YouTube video first before you can start making a GIF. However, if you don't want to go through that bother then there are several ways you can make a GIF right in your browser, without the need to download anything. That's ideal if you're working with a low-specced laptop or on a phone, as all the processing to make the GIF is done in the cloud rather than on your machine. With these options you can make quick and fun GIFs from YouTube videos in just a few minutes.
Use GIFs.com for great customization
Step 1: Find the YouTube video that you want to turn into a GIF (perhaps a NASA archive?) and copy its URL.

Social Media

I paid Meta to ‘verify’ me — here’s what actually happened

In the fall of 2023 I decided to do a little experiment in the height of the “blue check” hysteria. Twitter had shifted from verifying accounts based (more or less) on merit or importance and instead would let users pay for a blue checkmark. That obviously went (and still goes) badly. Meanwhile, Meta opened its own verification service earlier in the year, called Meta Verified.

Mostly aimed at “creators,” Meta Verified costs $15 a month and helps you “establish your account authenticity and help[s] your community know it’s the real us with a verified badge." It also gives you “proactive account protection” to help fight impersonation by (in part) requiring you to use two-factor authentication. You’ll also get direct account support “from a real person,” and exclusive features like stickers and stars.