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A comment on Tim Berners-Lee: Tell Facebook, Google you want your data back. Parent comment

Re:Tim Berners-Lee: Tell Facebook, Google you want your data... by rmc on Wednesday April 18, 2012 @04:46PM (#3860093)
If you are not in the USA (and maybe Canada) and you sign up to Facebook, you are signing an agreement with Facebook Ireland Ltd., a company registered in the EU and, hence, subject to EU law.

One part of EU law is that people have the right to access all personal data that a company holds on them. Here's an example of how to make such a request. http://europe-v-facebook.org/

You might claim "people voluntarily choose to join a free service, what right do you have to demand anything?" however that's not how laws work. Facebook is legally obliged to give non-US customers their data.

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Re:Tim Berners-Lee: Tell Facebook, Google you want your data... by grey-area on Wednesday April 18, 2012 @05:25PM (#3860302)
That's really interesting, I had no idea they were incorporated in Ireland too and hence sometimes subject to EU law (in theory at least). Thanks for the link. I'm not actually a member, but I'd be interested to see what they produce on other people just to see what sort of data they're holding.
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Re:Tim Berners-Lee: Tell Facebook, Google you want your data... by _delirium on Wednesday April 18, 2012 @05:52PM (#3860419)
I believe it's done as a tax dodge, so they can book some of their income in Ireland (which has low corporate taxes). May not have fully realized the privacy-law implications at the time they set that up. Either that or the savings are enough to be worth it.
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